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.
-
Maria Ressa of the Philippines is one of two journalists to have received the Nobel Peace Prize this week, highlighting a message about the need for press freedom.
-
Due to recent scandals and Queen Elizabeth's poor health, the royal family's brand and future feel far less certain than it has in years. Can "The Firm" survive without its CEO?
-
Representatives from developing countries badly hit by climate change say they are disappointed by what's been achieved at the U.N. climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland.
-
For some people attending the UN's COP26 conference in Scotland, climate change is not a future threat — they are seeing its impact on their homelands now.
-
More than 500 attendees from the fossil fuel industry are at the climate summit in Glasgow. Their reps have attended climate summits for decades. Some are touting a shift toward renewables.
-
Environmentalists plan a "Day of Protest" in Glasgow on Saturday to show their disgust to what they say is a tepid response of world leaders to the climate crisis.
-
Environmentalists are expected to stage large protests are expected in Glasgow, Scotland, today, demanding more action to combat climate change.
-
Young people from around the world are protesting over world leaders' response to climate change at the UN's climate summit in Glasgow on Friday.
-
Young environmentalists are protesting at the U.N. climate summit in Scotland. They want countries to move faster to reduce carbon emissions in an attempt to mitigate the effects of climate change.
-
London has dramatically expanding its ultra-low emission zone, where older vehicles will face stiff charges as part of a plan to reduce harmful nitrogen pollutants by 30%.
-
President Biden has pledged urgent action on the "existential threat" of climate change. But his struggles to get his plan through Congress may undercut U.S. influence at a global climate summit.
-
There are plans to open the U.K.'s first new coal mine in three decades — just as the government is trying to tout its environmental record as host of the U.N.'s climate meeting.