 | Thisbiography of a living personneeds additionalcitations forverification. Please help by addingreliable sources.Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced orpoorly sourcedmust be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentiallylibelous. Find sources: "Lulu Garcia-Navarro" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(March 2023) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Lulu Garcia-Navarro | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Garcia-Navarro at thePeabody Awards in 2012 | |
| Born | London, England |
| Education | Georgetown University (BS) City University of London (MA) |
| Occupation | Journalist |
| Years active | 1999–present |
| Spouse | James Hider |
Lourdes Garcia-Navarro (also known asLulu) is a British-born American journalist who is an Opinion Audio podcast host forThe New York Times. She was the host ofNational Public Radio'sWeekend Edition Sunday from 2017 to 2021, when she left NPR after 17 years at the network.
Garcia-Navarro was previously a foreign correspondent and served as NPR's bureau chief inMexico City,Baghdad, andJerusalem, and opened the bureau inRio de Janeiro. Her coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and dispatches of theArab Spring uprisings brought Garcia-Navarro multiple awards in 2012, including theEdward R. Murrow andPeabody Awards for her coverage of theLibyan revolt.[1][2] Her series on theAmazon rainforest was a Peabody finalist and won an Edward R. Murrow award for best news series.[3]
Garcia-Navarro was born inLondon, England,[4] one of six children born to refugees from the1959 Cuban Revolution.[5] She states that her parents are of Cuban and Panamanian descent and her father died when she was five.[6] She was raised inMiami.[7][8] She earned abachelor of science in international relations fromGeorgetown University and a master's degree in journalism fromCity University in London.[3][9]
She started her career as a freelance journalist for theBBC World Service andVoice of America, traveling to Cuba, Syria, Panama, and several European countries on assignment for the two organizations.[3]
She was hired byAssociated Press Television News as a producer in 1999 and later worked for the news agency's radio division. AP dispatched Garcia-Navarro to Kosovo in 1999; Colombia in 2000; Afghanistan in 2001; Israel in 2002; and Iraq from 2002 to 2004.[10]
Garcia-Navarro traveled to Iraq on assignment before the 2003 war and was among the few journalists that covered the invasion as a unilateral reporter.[11]
Garcia-Navarro joinedNational Public Radio in November 2004 asMexico City bureau chief. She moved toBaghdad in January 2008 and oversaw NPR's Iraq coverage for more than a year.[3] In April 2009, she moved to Jerusalem to become bureau chief, a position that she held through to the end of 2012.[12] She opened NPR's Brazil bureau in April 2013.[13]
Garcia-Navarro was awarded the 2006Daniel Schorr Journalism Prize for her work in Mexico and belonged to teams that received the 2005 Peabody Award and the 2007Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia University Silver Baton Award recognizing NPR's Iraq coverage.[3]
In February 2011, Garcia-Navarro was one of the first reporters to report from eastern Libya as the uprising was gaining strength and reported for months from rebel-held Benghazi, Tripoli, and the western mountains as rebel forces fought pitched battles against Col. Muammar Gaddafi's regime.[citation needed] Garcia-Navarro's front-line reports made her among the most praised journalists covering the Arab Spring.[according to whom?]
Besides the Murrow and Peabody awards, she received the 2012 City University in London XCity Award,[14] the Outstanding CorrespondentGracie Award,[15] and the Overseas Press Club Lowell Thomas Award.[16]
From her base in Brazil, Garcia-Navarro covered political protests, theZika virus and theOlympics.[citation needed] She became the new regular host of NPR'sWeekend Edition Sunday on January 8, 2017, and later complemented that role by co-hosting the Saturday edition of the network'sUp First podcast withWeekend Edition Saturday hostScott Simon.[citation needed]
On September 9, 2021, she announced she would leave NPR as of October 17, 2021.[17]The New York Times Company announced on September 30, 2021, that Garcia-Navarro would join its Opinion Audio team to anchor a new podcast to "explore the personal side of opinion".[18] The podcast,First Person, debuted on June 9, 2022.[19]
In April 2024, Garcia-Navarro became the co-host, withDavid Marchese, of theNew York Times podcastThe Interview, featuring a structure in which guests are interviewed twice over the course of a week.[20]
Garcia-Navarro is married to journalist James Hider, an editor at NPR.[21] They have a daughter, Cassenia.[22] In 2017, Garcia-Navarro became a U.S. citizen.[23]
My parents are Cuban and Panamanian. I grew up in Miami. ... I'm neither Latina nor Hispanic because I don't live in the U.S. / I'm a Cuban-Panamanian-Brit who speaks Spanish and lives in a Portuguese-speaking part of Latin America.
Lourdes Garcia-Navarro, Jerusalem bureau chief for NPR
This is my first #JulyFourth as a US citizen. Happy Independence Day to all my fellow immigrants!