How NPR reporters built an archive to document January 6th

NPR | By Barrie Hardymon,

Tom Dreisbach, Emily Kwong, Linah Mohammad, Sarah Robbins, Daniel Ofman

Published February 21, 2026 at 5:16 PM EST

Five years ago, a mob stormed the U.S. Capitol with the goal of stopping the certification of the presidential election. NPR's Tom Dreisbach wanted to preserve a record of the moments before, during, and after the attacks for future generations.

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Barrie Hardymon

Barrie Hardymon is the senior editor for NPR's Investigations team. In 2020 she was the editorial lead for election coverage and ran NPR's pop-up talk show during the early days of the coronavirus called The National Conversation from All Things Considered. Before that she was senior editor at NPR's Weekend Edition, and the lead editor for books. You can hear Hardymon on the radio talking about everything from Middlemarch to middle-grade novels, and she's also a frequent panelist on NPR's podcasts It's Been A Minute and Pop Culture Happy Hour. She went to Juilliard to study viola, ended up a cashier at the Strand and finally got a degree from Johns Hopkins' Writing Seminars, which qualified her solely for work in public radio. She lives and reads in Washington, D.C.

Tom Dreisbach

Tom Dreisbach is a correspondent on NPR's Investigations team focusing on breaking news stories.

Emily Kwong

Emily Kwong (she/her) is the founding reporter and now co-host for Short Wave, NPR's science podcast.

Linah Mohammad

Sarah Robbins

Daniel Ofman