Loren Jenkins
Senior Foreign Editor
Loren Jenkins brings over 30 years of experience to his post as the senior editor of NPR's foreign desk.
Educated as a political scientist at the University of Colorado and Columbia University, Jenkins spent 25 years overseas as a foreign correspondent for UPI, Newsweek, and The Washington Post. During his time overseas he was variously based in London, Madrid, Paris, Beirut, Hong Kong, Saigon, and Rome. The stories he covered ranged from Middle East conflicts to the Vietnam War, from battles between India and Pakistan to the war between Iraq and Iran, the fall of the Shah of Iran and the rise of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the Intifada revolt in Israel and Palestine. Jenkins was Newsweek's last bureau chief in Vietnam.
Jenkins joined NPR in 1996 as senior foreign editor in charge of the network's award-winning international coverage. Under Jenkins' leadership, NPR reporters have won an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award; several George Foster Peabody Awards; and a number of Overseas Press Club awards, including three prestigious Lowell Thomas awards for the best radio news or interpretation of foreign affairs.
Before coming to NPR, Jenkins was awarded the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting for his Washington Post coverage of the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon and its aftermath. He has also won an Overseas Press Club award for his coverage of the Lebanese Civil War for Newsweek. Jenkins was the Edward R. Murrow Press Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City in 1988-89. Jenkins' articles and reviews have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The Nation, Rolling Stone, Salon, Conde Nast Traveler, and The New York Times.
In between his time abroad as a foreign correspondent and his current job at NPR, Jenkins also served as publisher and editor in chief of his hometown newspaper, The Aspen Times, in Colorado. While there, he revitalized the struggling paper into a vibrant and successful prize-winning publication.
