Draft:Steve Chiotakis

Steve Chiotakis (born 1970 in Gary, Indiana) is an American radio host. He hosts weekday afternoons on KCRW, a public radio station based in Santa Monica, California. He is the local host of NPR’s All Things Considered. He hosted the daily Los Angeles-based radio show and podcast Greater LA, from 2019-2024.

Early years and education
Chiotakis was born in Gary, Indiana. His father was born in Piraes, Greece, and his mother (Greek-American) was born in Indiana. Chiotakis’s family moved to Birmingham, Alabama, in 1978.

Chiotakis attended and graduated from University of Alabama at Birmingham, earning a Bachelor’s Degree in Communications Studies and Journalism.

Career
He graduated from Shades Valley High School in 1988, and began his radio career shortly thereafter at Dick Broadcasting Company, which owned two stations in Birmingham, WZRR-FM (rock format) and WVOK-AM (country format). He served as promotions assistant for both stations and started as on air talent.

By early 1991, Chiotakis took a job at WERC-AM, as weekend news announcer, using the name Steve St. George. Programmers at the station were concerned his long Greek last name would be difficult for listeners to understand, so they simplified it.

As anchor and reporter, Chiotakis covered some of the biggest stories in the region at the time, including the crash of L’Express Flight 508 in the Ensley neighborhood of Birmingham, Hurricane Andrew and the Blizzard of 1993 in Birmingham, where he spent days on the radio taking phone calls from a region mostly without electricity.

In 1996, he went to work as local morning host at public radio station WBHM-FM. It was there he resumed using his real name on-air, hosting the NPR newsmagazine, Morning Edition, for more than 12 years.

In 2008, Chiotakis moved to Los Angeles to become co-host of American Public Media’s nationally-syndicated Marketplace Morning Report, where he worked until 2012 before moving on to KCRW.

Chiotakis has won many awards for his on-air work as anchor, host, reporter, and journalist, including from the Associated Press,  the Radio and Television Digital News Association (Edward R. Murrow Awards), including a National Murrow Award for writing,  Public Media Journalists Association (formerly PRNDI Awards), the 2017 Los Angeles Press Club for Best Anchor, 2020 Radio Journalist of the Year, and the 2021 Radio and Television News Association of Southern California (Golden Mike Awards).