Credit Doby Photography / NPR

Mark Stencel is managing editor for digital news. He is responsible for overseeing the journalism on NPR's website and other platforms and gizmos.

Since Stencel joined NPR in 2009, the network has been recognized as one of industry's leading digital news services, honored with the 2011 Eppy award for best journalism website from Editor & Publisher, a 2010 National Press Foundation award for excellence in online journalism, two Edward R. Murrow Awards, a Peabody award, and the 2011 Webby and People's Voice awards for news from the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences.

Stencel previously worked in both print and online journalism, and on the editorial and business sides of publishing. He was the executive editor and deputy publisher at GOVERNING, a monthly magazine and website written for leaders in state and local government and published by Congressional Quarterly. Stencel served as a managing editor at CQ, where he helped lead one of the largest news staffs on Capitol Hill, coordinating daily coverage of Congress, online and in print. Stencel also wrote regular columns and e-mail newsletters on technology trends for both GOVERNING and CQ Weekly.

Stencel began his career at the Washington Post as an assistant to syndicated columnist David S. Broder and as a researcher for the newspaper's national politics staff. After a stint as a science and technology correspondent for The News & Observer in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina — one of the first newspapers in the country to publish a web edition — Stencel returned to the Post in 1996 to help launch the company's first website: PoliticsNow, an election-year multimedia partnership involving ABC News, Newsweek and National Journal. Stencel then directed washingtonpost.com's award-winning political coverage, including President Clinton's impeachment and the 1998 and 2000 elections. Later, as a senior editor on the newspaper's breaking news desk, he served as a liaison between the Post's print and online newsrooms, coordinating coverage of the 2003 Iraq invasion, the 2004 election and other major stories.

In addition to his work as an editor, Stencel was a vice president at the Post Company's online division, Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, where he directed the business side of early mobile and multimedia efforts and managed content partnerships and projects with other news organizations, online publishers and mobile phone carriers and device makers. Stencel worked with the company's editorial, marketing and sales leaders to cultivate the Post's growing online audience across the country and around the world — a new line of business for what had been a local newspaper, despite its national reputation. (In that role, he briefly served as the digital division's "vice president for global conquest.")

Stencel is the co-author of two books on media and politics — Peep Show: Media and Politics and in an Age of Scandal, written with political scientists Larry J. Sabato and S. Robert Lichter; and On the Line: The New Road to the White House, written with CNN's Larry King. He continues to write about science and technology, including digital media trends, on his personal blog, "Assignment: Future" (http://assignmentfuture.com).

The Two-Way
11:29 am
Tue November 8, 2011

As Asteroid Approaches, Here's How To Watch It

Credit NASA/JPL-Caltech
This radar image of asteroid 2005 YU55 was obtained on Nov. 7 when the space rock was at 3.6 lunar distances, which is about 860,000 miles from Earth.

As we reported at the end of October, 2005 YU55, an asteroid bigger than an aircraft carrier, is set to have a very close rendezvous with planet Earth. It'll be closer than the moon and today at 6:28 p.m. ET, it will make its closest approach.

Don't worry. NASA is confident it will miss us. Here's a video NASA put together that explains the trajectory and shows an animation:

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The Two-Way
11:03 am
Tue November 8, 2011

Another Cain Accuser Identified

Karen Kraushaar, a 55-year-old federal employee and registered Republican, has been identified as one of the two women who in the late 1990s settled claims of sexual harassment against 2012 GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain, our colleague Liz Halloran reports on the It's All Politics blog and the NPR Newscast.

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It's All Politics
10:55 am
Tue November 8, 2011

Earlier Cain Accuser Is Republican, Longtime Government Employee

Credit Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images
Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain addressed the Defending the American Dream Summit at the Washington Convention Center Nov. 4. in Washington, DC. He plans to speak about the sexual harassment allegations against him at a news conference Tuesday afternoon.

Until now, Karen Kraushaar has been known to many in Washington as "Woman A," one of two employees who settled claims of sexual harassment against Herman Cain more than a decade ago when he headed the National Restaurant Association.

On Tuesday, after another woman went public with her harassment accusation against Cain, Kraushaar's identity was revealed by an iPad news site, The Daily.

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The Two-Way
10:50 am
Tue November 8, 2011

Monster Storm Takes Aim For Alaska

Credit NOAA
A massive storm brews off the west coast of Alaska.

The National Weather Service is predicting a "historic" storm for the west coast of Alaska. Here's how meteorologists described it to the Alaska Dispatch:

"This is going to be one of the worst storms on record over the Bering Sea," said Bob Fischer, lead forecaster with the National Weather Service in Alaska. "Essentially the entire west coast of Alaska is going to see blizzard and winter conditions — heavy snow, poor visibility, high winds."

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It's All Politics
10:31 am
Tue November 8, 2011

Clinton For Veep: Follow The Sources

Would President Obama swap Joe Biden for Hillary Clinton on his 2012 ticket? NPR's Political Junkie Ken Rudin is dubious. "Where this comes from I do not know," he declared in his Monday column dismissing the speculation about any plans to replace Biden.

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Shots - Health Blog
9:55 am
Tue November 8, 2011

Unhappiest Hospital Patients Are In New York City, Chicago And Florida

Not all hospital patients are alike. Some are harder to satisfy. Especially those who are admitted to hospitals in and around New York City, Chicago and parts of Florida.

Patients in those places gave some of the lowest evaluations of their hospital stays, Medicare data show. The surveys asked patients how well their doctors and nurses communicated, whether their pain was always handled welland whether their rooms were clean and quiet.

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The Salt
9:09 am
Tue November 8, 2011

Mississippi Leads U.S. In Reliance On Food Stamps

Credit Mario Tama / Getty Images
Garrett Grant works inside a store in the impoverished town of Glendora, Miss. Some 24 percent of Mississippians receive on government food assistance, the highest percentage in the country.

Originally published on Tue November 8, 2011 12:06 pm

The number of Americans who use food stamps is now close to 46 million, or 15 percent of the population. The government program that provides food stamps is formally known as SNAP, for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. And the number of people who depend on it to buy groceries has grown substantially, even since the recession was officially declared over, back in June of 2009.

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The Two-Way
8:56 am
Tue November 8, 2011

Berlusconi Loses Majority In Key Vote

Originally published on Tue November 8, 2011 12:57 pm

Update at 2:26 p.m. ET. In a meeting with Italy's president, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi offered to resign after Parliament approved a budget filled with new austerity measures.

The Guardian reports that President Giorgio Napolitano broke the news in a statement that read in part:

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It's All Politics
8:47 am
Tue November 8, 2011

Herman Cain's Kimmel Show Allred Joke Was Odd Crisis Management

Herman Cain definitely doesn't seem to have this crisis-management thing down yet.

He presumably went on Jimmy Kimmel Live Monday evening to fight the latest charge of sexual misbehavior, this one from Sharon Bialek that he made a vulgar and unwanted sexual come-on to her in 1997 when she was seeking his help for reemployment at the National Restaurant Association.

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