NPR Culture Editor Rose Friedman Dead at 38

Rose Friedman, the NPR editor and reporter who helped build the network’s books and culture desk for 15 years, passed away from cancer on Thursday at her home in New York City at 38 years old.

Friedman was a shop steward for SAG-AFTRA, which represents NPR’s editorial staff, and she told colleagues her proudest achievement was helping push the company to expand paid parental leave.

NPR’s obituary for Friedman reads, in part:

Rose 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.

Not the second line but still pretty high up in the story. Rose would understand.

Rose Friedman 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.

In 2020, she was the network’s lead reporter on the Harvey Weinstein criminal trial in New York. She was heavily involved in NPR’s coverage of the #MeToo movement.

Correspondent Tom Dreisbach said her approach was, “Let’s go big.”

Friedman leaves behind two children and partner Andrew Anastasi. She is also survived by her parents, Carolyn and Jerry Friedman, and sisters Sophie and Nina.

The editor grew up in Newton, Massachusetts, studied labor history at Macalester College, and won the Barbara Wertheimer Prize for a paper on worker solidarity on Minnesota’s Iron Range.

Before joining NPR, she interned at Minnesota Public Radio, worked in a St. Paul cheese shop, and joined NPR Books in 2010 as an editorial assistant in her early 20s.

She later became an associate editor on the Arts, Books & Culture desk, co-created the annual Books We Love guide, edited This Week’s Must Read, and recently helped lead NPR’s America 250 series.