List of Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! episodes (1998)

The following is a list of episodes of Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! that aired during the NPR news panel game's first year in 1998. Dan Coffey served as original host until being succeeded by Peter Sagal in May. Carl Kasell served as announcer and scorekeeper. Dates indicated are the episodes' original Saturday air dates. Job titles and backgrounds of the guests reflect their status at the time of their appearance.

January[edit]

Date	Guest	Panelists
January 3		Roy Blount, Jr., Roxanne Roberts, Peter Sagal
January 10		Roxanne Roberts, Peter Sagal, Margo Kaufman
January 17		Roxanne Roberts, Amy Dickinson, Charlie Pierce
January 24		Margo Kaufman, Roxanne Roberts, Peter Sagal
January 31	Tim Foecke, Titanic scientist ^[1]	Roy Blount, Jr., Margo Kaufman, Peter Sagal

February[edit]

Date	Panelists
February 7	Margo Kaufman, Roxanne Roberts, Peter Sagal
February 14
February 21
February 28

March[edit]

Date	Panelists
March 7	Roy Blount, Jr., Margo Kaufman, Peter Sagal
March 14	Margo Kaufman, Peter Sagal, Roxanne Roberts
March 21	Roxanne Roberts, Peter Sagal, Charlie Pierce
March 28	Margo Kaufman, Peter Sagal, Adam Felber

April[edit]

Date	Panelists	Notes
April 4	Margo Kaufman, Roxanne Roberts, Peter Sagal
April 11	Roxanne Roberts, Peter Sagal, Charlie Pierce
April 18	Margo Kaufman, Charlie Pierce, Roxanne Roberts
April 25	Margo Kaufman, Roxanne Roberts, Peter Sagal	Dan Coffey's final episode as host

May[edit]

Date	Guest	Panelists	Notes
May 2	NPR special correspondent Susan Stamberg	Adam Felber, Charlie Pierce, Roxanne Roberts	Peter Sagal's first episode as host First edition of the "Not My Job" guest segment^[2]
May 9	Robert Siegel, host of NPR's All Things Considered
May 16	NPR correspondent Peter Overby		First episode to feature "Who's Carl This Time?" as a segment
May 23	NPR Pentagon correspondent Martha Raddatz	Adam Felber, Roxanne Roberts, Margo Kaufman
May 30	NPR correspondent Joe Palca	Charlie Pierce, Margo Kaufman, Roxanne Roberts

June[edit]

Date	Guest	Panelists
June 6	NPR newscaster Corey Flintoff	Adam Felber, Charlie Pierce, Roxanne Roberts
June 13	NPR Talk of the Nation host Ray Suarez	Charlie Pierce, Adam Felber, Roxanne Roberts
June 20	Columnist and radio personality Bob Garfield	Adam Felber, Charlie Pierce, Margo Kaufman
June 27	NPR Midwest correspondent Cheryl Corley	Margo Kaufman, Charlie Pierce, Roxanne Roberts

July[edit]

Date	Guest	Panelists
July 4	This American Life host/producer Ira Glass	Adam Felber, Margo Kaufman, Roxanne Roberts
July 11	NPR correspondent Renee Montagne	Roy Blount, Jr., Roxanne Roberts, Charlie Pierce
July 18	NPR sports correspondent Tom Goldman	Adam Felber, Roxanne Roberts, Charlie Pierce
July 25	Linda Wertheimer, host of NPR's All Things Considered	Margo Kaufman, Charlie Pierce, Roxanne Roberts

August[edit]

Date	Guest	Panelists
August 1	NPR science correspondent Richard Harris	Roy Blount, Jr., Adam Felber, Roxanne Roberts
August 8	NPR business reporter Madeleine Brand	Adam Felber, Roxanne Roberts, Charlie Pierce
August 15	NPR contributor Kevin Kling	Adam Felber, Roxanne Roberts, Margo Kaufman
August 22	NPR Theme music composer B. J. Leiderman	Roy Blount, Jr., Charlie Pierce, Roxanne Roberts
August 29	NPR Los Angeles correspondent Andy Bowers	Adam Felber, Charlie Pierce, Roxanne Roberts

September[edit]

Date	Guest	Panelists	Notes
September 5	NPR correspondent Neal Conan	Roxanne Roberts, Margo Kaufman, Charlie Pierce
September 12	NPR correspondent Margo Adler	Roy Blount, Jr., Adam Felber, Roxanne Roberts
September 19	NPR State Department reporter Ted Clark	Adam Felber, Roxanne Roberts, Charlie Pierce
September 26	NPR senior correspondent Jacki Lyden	Adam Felber, Roxanne Roberts, Charlie Pierce	First edition of the "Bluff the Listener" segment

October[edit]

Date	Guest	Panelists	Notes
October 3	Weekend Edition Saturday commentator Ketzel Levine	Roy Blount, Jr., Adam Felber, Roxanne Roberts
October 10	NPR cultural correspondent Dean Olsher	Roy Blount, Jr., Roxanne Roberts, Margo Kaufman
October 17	no guest	Roy Blount, Jr., Adam Felber, Roxanne Roberts	First edition of the "Listener Limerick Challenge"
October 24	NPR media correspondent Brooke Gladstone	Roxanne Roberts, Nell Benjamin, Charlie Pierce
October 31	NPR news reference librarian Kee Malesky	Roy Blount, Jr., Charlie Pierce, Roxanne Roberts

November[edit]

Date	Guest	Panelists
November 7	NPR correspondent Melissa Block	Adam Felber, Charlie Pierce, Roxanne Roberts
November 14	NPR transportation correspondent Steve Inskeep
November 21	NPR president Kevin Klose
November 28	Best Of Wait Wait Episode

December[edit]

Date	Guest	Panelists
December 5	NPR environment correspondent John Neilsen	Sue Ellicott, Charlie Pierce, Roxanne Roberts
December 12	NPR London correspondent Michael Goldfarb	Roxanne Roberts, Roy Blount, Jr., Adam Felber
December 19	NPR health care correspondent Joanne Silberner	Adam Felber, Charlie Pierce, Roxanne Roberts
December 26	Liane Hansen, host of NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday	Adam Felber, Charlie Pierce, Roxanne Roberts

References[edit]

^ "Wait Wait -- Don't Tell Me!". NPR. Archived from the original on 2018-11-07. Retrieved 2018-11-06.
^ "‘Wait Wait’ … Please Tell Me: The Story Behind NPR’s Beloved Quiz Show," from The Ringer, 1/4/2018

External links[edit]

Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! Archives
WWDT.Me, an unofficial Wait Wait historical site

[1] "Wait Wait -- Don't Tell Me!". NPR. Archived from the original on 2018-11-07. Retrieved 2018-11-06.

[2] "‘Wait Wait’ … Please Tell Me: The Story Behind NPR’s Beloved Quiz Show," from The Ringer, 1/4/2018

[1]

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v t e Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!
Episodes by year	1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024
Hosts	Peter Sagal (current) Dan Coffey (1998)
Judge and scorekeeper	Bill Kurtis (current) Carl Kasell (1998–2014)
Regular panelists	Brian Babylon Roy Blount Jr. Alonzo Bodden Tom Bodett Joel Kim Booster Luke Burbank Adam Burke Amy Dickinson Negin Farsad Adam Felber Bobcat Goldthwait Josh Gondelman Peter Grosz Maeve Higgins Helen Hong Maz Jobrani Jessi Klein Hari Kondabolu Laci Mosley P.J. O'Rourke Tom Papa Paula Poundstone Greg Proops Roxanne Roberts Mo Rocca Faith Salie Dulcé Sloan

v t e NPR
National Association of Educational Broadcasters (1925–1981) National Educational Radio Network (1961–1970) Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 Corporation for Public Broadcasting (1967–) Association of Public Radio Stations (1973–1977)
Productions	All Songs Considered All Things Considered Alt.Latino Code Switch Consider This Here and Now How I Built This Invisibilia Morning Edition No Compromise Planet Money Rough Translation TED Radio Hour The Thistle & Shamrock Throughline Tiny Desk Concerts Up First Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! Weekend Edition
Distributions	1A Bullseye with Jesse Thorn Car Talk (reruns only since 2012) Fresh Air From the Top Latino USA Mountain Stage Piano Jazz StoryCorps World Cafe
Current personalities	Noah Adams Nancy Barnes Eleanor Beardsley Melissa Block Meghna Chakrabarti Scott Detrow Leila Fadel David Folkenflik Tom Gjelten Don Gonyea Terry Gross Linda Holmes Jon Hamilton Maria Hinojosa Steve Inskeep Mary Louise Kelly Anthony Kuhn Bill Kurtis Mara Liasson Michel Martin A Martínez Kelly McEvers Bob Mondello Renée Montagne Michele Norris Arun Rath Ayesha Rascoe Guy Raz Fiona Ritchie Ofeibea Quist-Arcton Peter Sagal Ari Shapiro Scott Simon Lakshmi Singh Alix Spiegel Susan Stamberg Juana Summers Nina Totenberg Linda Wertheimer Shankar Vedantam Jenn White Robin Young
Former personalities	Margot Adler Tom Ashbrook Geoff Bennett Bob Boilen Madeleine Brand Dee Dee Bridgewater Paul Brown Alex Chadwick Farai Chideya Neal Conan Audie Cornish Adam Davidson Bob Edwards Ira Flatow Corey Flintoff Lulu Garcia-Navarro Bob Garfield Anne Garrels Rob Gifford Brooke Gladstone Wade Goodwyn David Greene Liane Hansen John Hockenberry Jeremy Hobson Joshua Johnson Jacki Lyden Carl Kasell Noel King Ted Koppel Robert Krulwich Ketzel Levine Tom and Ray Magliozzi Marian McPartland Lulu Miller Sylvia Poggioli Diane Rehm Cokie Roberts Ken Rudin Daniel Schorr Andrea Seabrook Robert Siegel Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor Alison Stewart Ray Suarez Sanford J. Ungar Juan Williams Nancy Wilson Craig Windham
Former productions	Ask Me Another Bryant Park Project Day to Day The Diane Rehm Show Earplay Jazz Profiles News & Notes NPR Playhouse Only a Game Radio Expeditions Talk of the Nation Tell Me More State of the Re:Union
See also	American Public Media NPR stations NPR Music NPR controversies NPR One Public Radio Satellite System Pacifica Foundation Public Radio Exchange Public Radio International, 1983–2019