Rose Friedman, an NPR editor and reporter who helped shape the network’s arts and cultural coverage for 15 years, died at home in New York City on Sept. 17. She was 38. The cause was cancer, NPR announced.
Friedman was an editor to the end. She said she wanted the second line of her obituary to acknowledge her role as a shop steward for SAG-AFTRA, the union that represents NPR’s editorial workers. She wanted the line to say that her “proudest achievement” was helping convince NPR to increase its paid parental leave.
She was in her early 20s when she landed her first position as an editorial assistant at NPR Books. She became deeply sourced in the publishing industry and seemed to have read everything. She edited book reviews and features such as This Week’s Must Read. She wrote numerous appreciations of authors, including Herman Wouk and the legendary editor Sonny Mehta.
For the Book Concierge, which was later renamed Books We Love, Friedman helped pore over hundreds of titles nominated by NPR staff and critics and whittle them down into a robust reader’s guide. She was one of the guide’s co-creators and, most recently, helped lead NPR’s America 250 series.
“She was voracious,” said novelist Meg Wolitzer, who worked with Friedman on NPR reviews and features. “What a gifted, delightful, brilliant, deeply kind person. And I would say a true enthusiast. I got so much working with Rose.”
Even as a young staffer in the NPR newsroom, Friedman had an old school journalist’s sensibility. She was endlessly curious but always skeptical. She strived for clarity and depth but also humor and surprise. Food was one of her favorite subjects. In her profile of chef Bill Buford, the first thing listeners hear her say is: “I have to tell you — this does not smell very good.”
For many years Friedman edited Elizabeth Blair, a colleague who recalled pitching a story on an artist who was trending. Friedman scoffed, “Isn’t she just for Instagram?” She pushed back on hot takes and stories she did not think had substance. But sometimes that pushback was intended to make reporters work harder, not to kill an idea altogether.
“She had so much integrity,” said Theo Balcomb, a former supervising editor for NPR’s All Things Considered and now a senior editor at The Atlantic. Balcomb and Friedman met early in their careers at NPR and became close friends. “She would care more about ‘Was this true?’ or as holistic as we could get than, ‘Is it buzzy?'” Balcomb said. “She had a strong sense of purpose.”
In 2020, Friedman was NPR’s lead reporter on the sexual assault trial of former movie executive Harvey Weinstein. The testimony from Weinstein’s alleged victims haunted her. She edited numerous #MeToo stories. In 2018, she shared a National Headliner Award for the feature “Women Are Speaking Up About Harassment And Abuse, But Why Now?”
Friedman grew up in Newton, Mass. She studied labor history at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn. For her dissertation, she researched worker solidarity across ethnic lines at an iron range in Minnesota. Her paper won the Barbara Wertheimer Prize in Labor History from the New York Labor History Association.
She brought her passion for labor rights to NPR. Friedman and NPR correspondent Tom Dreisbach were on the SAG-AFTRA committee that convinced the company to increase its paid parental leave. “Rose’s thought was, ‘let’s go big,'” Dreisbach remembered.
Friedman loved being a mom to her two children. “She said having babies is the best thing in the world and that the first six months with a baby, you don’t get it back,” Dreisbach said. She and her partner, Andrew Anastasi, were avid travelers and daring foodies. Balcomb remembered them ordering an entire pig’s head at a beer garden in Washington, D.C. On a visit with Friedman and Anastasi when they were living in Italy, Dreisbach said she insisted they order the “spleen sandwich” at a certain market in Palermo.
Dreisbach said he will remember Friedman as someone who was “able to find more delight in life than almost anyone. Every day is a new adventure.” Her friend and colleague Natalie Winston agreed: “No one lives in the moment more than Rose.”
Winston visited Friedman in the spring of 2025 after she had surgery. She figured they would stay home, and that she would cook for Friedman and help clean the apartment. “And she’s like, ‘We’re going to Chinatown to get dumplings, eat them on a park bench, take the ferry to Ikea in Brooklyn,'” Winston said. “She just wanted to explore everything.”
Tributes poured in after Friedman’s death. “Rose was a gem. We miss her already,” one person wrote. Geoff Bennett of NewsHour added: “38 is far too young. What a heartbreaking loss. This is such a beautiful tribute to Rose Friedman and to the curiosity, joy and care she brought to her work and to the people around her. May her memory be a blessing.”
Friedman is survived by her two children and her partner, Andrew Anastasi. She is also survived by her parents, Carolyn and Jerry Friedman, and her sisters, Sophie and Nina.
