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.
-
As Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, expectations were low for Ukraine's president. But Volodymyr Zelenskyy has confounded both his allies and his enemies with his performance. -
Biden met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and announced a half a billion dollars of additional assistance to Ukraine.
-
Biden met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and announced a half a billion dollars of additional assistance to Ukraine.
-
Nearly a year into the war, Ukraine is preparing for a Russian offensive this spring. Aid from Western allies has bolstered Ukraine's defense but Russia has an advantage when it comes to numbers.
-
As the war in Ukraine approaches the end of its first year, NATO allies face a challenge to keep the Ukrainian army supplied with weapons and ammunition — as their own stocks dwindle.
-
NATO countries have sent sophisticated, Western-made weapons to Ukraine. As the war with Russia approaches the one-year mark, some are pushing to send advanced, main battle tanks.
-
2022 was the year in which Great Britain lost its queen of seven decades, gained a new king and saw three prime ministers take office. The year concluded with multiple strikes and inflation near 11%. -
2022 was a tumultuous year in the United Kingdom when the leaders of two major British institutions exited the stage. What does 2023 hold for the U.K.?
-
Nurses, postal workers and railway employees are all walking out this month in the U.K.'s largest series of labor actions in more than a decade. It's a major challenge to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. -
Tens of thousands of public sector workers — including rail workers and mail carriers — are striking December, in the largest series of labor actions the U.K. has seen in more than a decade.
