John Burnett
John Burnett is a national correspondent based in Austin, Texas, who has been assigned a new beat for 2022—Polarized America—to explore all facets of our politically and culturally divided nation. Prior to this assignment, Burnett covered immigration, Southwest border affairs, Texas news and other national assignments. In 2018, 2019 and again in 2020, he won national Edward R. Murrow Awards from the Radio-Television News Directors Association for continuing coverage of the immigration beat. In 2020, Burnett along with other NPR journalists, were finalists for a duPont-Columbia Award for their coverage of the Trump Administration's Remain in Mexico program. In December 2018, Burnett was invited to participate in a workshop on Refugees, Immigration and Border Security in Western Europe, sponsored by the RIAS Berlin Commission.
Though he is assigned to the National Desk, his beat has sometimes stretched around the world.
He has filed stories from more than 30 countries since joining NPR in 1986. In 2012, he spent five months in Nairobi as the East Africa Correspondent, followed by a stint during 2013 as the network's religion reporter. His special reporting projects have included working in New Orleans during and after Hurricane Katrina, as an embedded reporter with the First Marine Division during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and continuing coverage of the U.S. drug war in the Americas. His reports are heard regularly on NPR's award-winning newsmagazines Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and Weekend Edition.
Burnett's 2008 groundbreaking four-part series "Dirty Money"—which examined how law enforcement agencies have gotten hooked on and, in some cases, corrupted by seized drug money—won three national awards: a Scripps Howard National Journalism Award for Investigative Reporting, a Sigma Delta Chi Society of Professional Journalists Award for Investigative Reporting, and an Edward R. Murrow Award for the accompanying website. His 2007 three-part series "The Forgotten War," which took a critical look at the nation's 30-year war on drugs, won a Nancy Dickerson Whitehead Award for Excellence in Reporting on Drug and Alcohol Problems.
In 2006, Burnett's memoir, Uncivilized Beasts & Shameless Hellions: Travels with an NPR Correspondent, was published by Rodale Press. In that year, he also served as an Ethics Fellow at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies in St. Petersburg, Florida.
In 2004, Burnett won a national Edward R. Murrow Award for investigative reporting for his story on the accidental U.S. bombing of an Iraqi village. His work was singled out by judges for the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award honoring the network's overall coverage of the Iraq War. Also in 2003, Burnett won a first place National Headliner Award for investigative reporting about corruption among federal immigration agents on the U.S.-Mexico border.
In the months following the attacks of September 11, Burnett reported from New York City, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. His reporting contributed to coverage that won the Overseas Press Club Award and an Alfred I. duPont Columbia University Award.
In 2001, Burnett reported and produced a one-hour documentary, "The Oil Century," for KUT-FM in Austin, which won a silver prize at the New York Festivals. He was a visiting faculty member in broadcast journalism at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies in 2002 and 1997. He received a Ford Foundation Grant in 1997 for a special series on sustainable development in Latin America.
Burnett's favorite stories are those that reveal a hidden reality. He recalls happening upon Carlos Garcia, a Mexico City street musician who plays a musical leaf, a chance encounter that brought a rare and beautiful art form to a national audience. In reporting his series "Fraud Down on the Farm," Burnett spent nine months investigating the abuse of the United States crop insurance system and shining light on surprising stories of criminality.
Abroad, his report on the accidental U.S. Air Force bombing of the Iraqi village of Al-Taniya, an event that claimed 31 lives, helped listeners understand the fog of war. His "Cocaine Republics" series in 2004 was one of the first accounts to detail the emergence of Central America as a major drug smuggling region. But many listeners remember the audio postcard he filed while on assignment in Peshawar, Pakistan, after 9/11 about what it was like being, at six-foot-seven, the "tallest American at a Death-to-Americarally."
Prior to coming to NPR, Burnett was based in Guatemala City for United Press International covering the Central America civil wars. From 1979-1983, he was a general assignment reporter for various Texas newspapers.
Burnett graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a bachelor's degree in journalism.
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A beloved heirloom variety of New Mexico red chile commands high prices because of its scarcity. Finding farmers to continue cultivating it has become a challenge. -
With a long career playing among jazz and R&B greats, he remains one of the most in-demand drummers in New Orleans. -
Neither of the reclusive author's interconnected books The Passenger and Stella Maris contains the savagery and bloodletting his readers have come to expect — there's less action and more dialogue. -
Eight radio stations in Southern Louisiana still broadcast partially in French as they try to keep alive a dying language in the area. French has been spoken there since the mid-1700s. -
Stefon Harris has been attracting the attention of jazz fans since he released his 1998 debut, but he's less interested in praise than helping his listeners empathize with the world around them. -
His massive record collection was completely obliterated by the earthquake and tsunami of March 11. But for Ken Terui — lecturer, record producer, concert presenter and proprietor of Johnny's Jazz Cafe — music has kept him afloat. -
Landreth is a guitarist's guitarist, but he's not well known outside music circles. His latest CD, from the Reach, is his ninth, but audiences have mostly seen Landreth play slide for the likes of John Hiatt, Jimmy Buffett or Clifton Chenier.
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Fifty years ago Sunday, the jazz musician Art Tatum died. He's among the piano geniuses of all time, in any genre. People who heard him for the first time on a record often thought they were listening to two piano players. Yet his legacy is often overlooked.
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In Casas Grandes, Mexico, lives one of the great characters of the borderlands -- an old horse trainer who arranges marriages between lonely American men and willing Mexican women. He's now the subject of a documentary film called Cowboy del Amor. -
Shades of Praise is an interracial gospel choir in New Orleans that has become locally famous as a symbol of racial harmony. The group was a common sight at stages and churches around town. Then came Hurricane Katrina, and suddenly this choir has found itself thrust into a new role.
