Frank Langfitt
Frank Langfitt is NPR's London correspondent. He covers the UK and Ireland, as well as stories elsewhere in Europe.
Langfitt arrived in London in June 2016. A week later, the UK voted for Brexit. He's been busy ever since, covering the most tumultuous period in British politics in decades. Langfitt has reported on everything from Brexit's economic impact, Chinese influence campaigns and terror attacks to the renewed push for Scottish independence, political tensions in Northern Ireland and Megxit. Langfitt has contributed to NPR podcasts, including Consider This, The Indicator from Planet Money, Code Switch and Pop Culture Happy Hour. He also appears on the BBC and PBS Newshour.
Previously, Langfitt spent five years as an NPR correspondent covering China. Based in Shanghai, he drove a free taxi around the city for a series on a changing China as seen through the eyes of ordinary people. As part of the series, Langfitt drove passengers back to the countryside for Chinese New Year and served as a wedding chauffeur. He expanded his reporting into a book, The Shanghai Free Taxi: Journeys with the Hustlers and Rebels of the New China (Public Affairs, Hachette).
While in China, Langfitt also reported on the government's infamous "black jails" — secret detention centers — as well as his own travails taking China's driver's test, which he failed three times.
Before moving to Shanghai, Langfitt was NPR's East Africa correspondent based in Nairobi. He reported from Sudan, covered the civil war in Somalia, and interviewed imprisoned Somali pirates, who insisted they were just misunderstood fishermen. During the Arab Spring, Langfitt covered the uprising and crushing of the democracy movement in Bahrain.
Prior to Africa, Langfitt was NPR's labor correspondent based in Washington, DC. He covered coal mine disasters in West Virginia, the 2008 financial crisis and the bankruptcy of General Motors. His story with producer Brian Reed of how GM failed to learn from a joint-venture factory with Toyota was featured on This American Life and has been taught in business schools at Yale, Penn and NYU.
In 2008, Langfitt covered the Beijing Olympics as a member of NPR's team, which won an Edward R. Murrow Award for sports reporting. Langfitt's print and visual journalism have also been honored by the Overseas Press Association and the White House News Photographers Association.
Before coming to NPR, Langfitt spent five years as a correspondent in Beijing for The Baltimore Sun, covering a swath of Asia from East Timor to the Khyber Pass.
Langfitt spent his early years in journalism stringing for the Philadelphia Inquirer and living in Hazard, Kentucky, where he covered the state's Appalachian coalfields for the Lexington Herald-Leader. Prior to becoming a reporter, Langfitt dug latrines in Mexico and drove a taxi in his hometown of Philadelphia. Langfitt is a graduate of Princeton and was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard.
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Wednesday's election may be political populism's next big test. Wilders' right-wing Freedom Party has led in polls — until recently. Two political analysts put his potential impact in context. -
The British government's counter-radicalization program Prevent has had mixed reviews. Supporters say it's reaching those at risk; critics argue it unfairly targets Muslims. -
Thousands of British pubs have closed in recent years. One London borough is trying to protect its pubs by requiring government approval if owners want to sell them for a different use. -
Last summer, a Chinese-American woman contacted NPR's Frank Langfitt with an unusual request: to help find her troubled sister, who'd vanished in southwest China. A difficult journey followed. -
In the past, rural Chinese seeking success left their families and found work on the coast. Now, high wages mean factories are shifting inland and migrants are delighted to be following them home. -
NPR's Frank Langfitt, who has been driving Chinese people around Shanghai to meet a variety of people and better understand the rapidly changing country, takes his experiment to a whole new level. -
After years of stunning growth, China's go-go real estate market is in retreat. It has been one of the engines driving the world's second-largest economy, so economists are watching it closely. -
Staffers at Bloomberg News accused editors of spiking an investigative story to avoid the wrath of the Communist Party. But analysts say accusations of self-censorship go far beyond this one case. One American academic compares China's censorial authority to a "giant anaconda" — its mere presence enough to make people limit their behavior. -
The metal legends played two packed nights in China's second city, and other big names are slated to follow suit. Despite high production costs, more international talent is being drawn to China in the wake of a growing fan base and improved venues. -
There is some political willingness, but because China is highly decentralized politically, the Communist Party has only limited influence over provincial governments and how they regulate their dirty factories. The powerful state-owned oil companies have also resisted pressure to produce cleaner-burning fuel.
