Bill Kurtis to Leave NPR’s ‘Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me!’
📖 Full Retelling
As the irreverent quiz show’s judge and scorekeeper, Kurtis, a former news anchor known for his rich voice, has helped find comedy in current events since 2014.
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Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Supported by SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Bill Kurtis to Leave NPR’s ‘Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me!’ As the irreverent quiz show’s judge and scorekeeper, Kurtis, a former news anchor known for his rich voice, has helped find comedy in current events since 2014. Listen · 2:36 min Share full article 0 By Derrick Bryson Taylor March 10, 2026, 3:50 p.m. ET Bill Kurtis, the veteran broadcast journalist known for his rich voice, is retiring from the irreverent National Public Radio news quiz show “Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me!” after serving as its judge and scorekeeper for a dozen years. Kurtis, 85, said in a statement that was sent to NPR’s editorial staff on Monday that there was no better way to stay young than to give voice to jokes written by people who are fearless in taking down anything and anyone. “What an incredible chapter ‘Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me’ is in my life,” he said. Before joining the show in 2014, Kurtis was a co-anchor of “CBS Morning News” and narrated the true crime docuseries “Cold Case Files” on the A&E Network. A representative for NPR declined to comment on Tuesday beyond the note sent to the staff. “Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me,” which started in January 1998, is a weekly hourlong quiz program that asks contestants, including call-in listeners and celebrity guests, to test their knowledge of current events in a series of lighthearted, comic segments. Winners — and with Kurtis’s generous score-keeping, the odds are often in contestants’ favor — receive a custom voice mail greeting recorded by one of the show’s regulars. The humorist Peter Sagal has hosted the show since its beginning. The show’s first scorekeeper was Carl Kasell, another broadcast journalist with decades of experience. He died in 2018 at the age of 84. Kurtis, who had earlier narrated the Will Ferrell comedy “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy,” quickly fit into the role, using his deep and full voice to find the comic potential in even the most mundane headli...
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