Noel King
Noel King is a host of Morning Edition and Up First.
Previously, as a correspondent at Planet Money, Noel's reporting centered on economic questions that don't have simple answers. Her stories have explored what is owed to victims of police brutality who were coerced into false confessions, how institutions that benefited from slavery are atoning to the descendants of enslaved Americans, and why a giant Chinese conglomerate invested millions of dollars in her small, rural hometown. Her favorite part of the job is finding complex, and often conflicted, people at the center of these stories.
Noel has also served as a fill-in host for Weekend All Things Considered and 1A from NPR Member station WAMU.
Before coming to NPR, she was a senior reporter and fill-in host for Marketplace. At Marketplace, she investigated the causes and consequences of inequality. She spent five months embedded in a pop-up news bureau examining gentrification in an L.A. neighborhood, listened in as low-income and wealthy residents of a single street in New Orleans negotiated the best way to live side-by-side, and wandered through Baltimore in search of the legacy of a $100 million federal job-creation effort.
Noel got her start in radio when she moved to Sudan a few months after graduating from college, at the height of the Darfur conflict. From 2004 to 2007, she was a freelancer for Voice of America based in Khartoum. Her reporting took her to the far reaches of the divided country. From 2007 - 2008, she was based in Kigali, covering Rwanda's economic and social transformation, and entrenched conflicts in the the Democratic Republic of Congo. From 2011 to 2013, she was based in Cairo, reporting on Egypt's uprising and its aftermath for PRI's The World, the CBC, and the BBC.
Noel was part of the team that launched The Takeaway, a live news show from WNYC and PRI. During her tenure as managing producer, the show's coverage of race in America won an RTDNA UNITY Award. She also served as a fill-in host of the program.
She graduated from Brown University with a degree in American Civilization, and is a proud native of Kerhonkson, NY.
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In 1968, a teenager convinced Thelonious Monk to play a concert at his high school to ease racial tensions in his community. More than 50 years later, it's been rediscovered and remastered.
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In a new book, economist William Darity Jr. argues that monetary payments are owed directly to the descendants of enslaved people, to help reverse more than two centuries of disenfranchisement.
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George Floyd's death isn't just a story about a black man and the white cop charged with his murder. Among Asian Americans, the involvement of Hmong officer Tou Thao is stirring a racial debate.
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Minnesota state Rep. Ruth Richardson doesn't want her teenage son, Shawn, a track athlete, to go running outside. "You can't do the same things that your white friends do," she remembers telling him.
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Protesters cleared to make way for President Trump's church visit, and he threatened to send troops to states to end protests. And, store owner wishes clerk wouldn't have called 911 on George Floyd.
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A plane carrying around 100 people has crashed in the Pakistani port city of Karachi. It was only a few days ago, on May 15, that domestic flights were allowed to resume in the country.
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China considers controversial Hong Kong security laws. Colleges prepare to reopen in the fall. And, COVID-19 delays trials at Guantanamo Bay.
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Julio Cesar Segura always buys his daughter a chicken sandwich for her birthday. He didn't let COVID-19 stop him this year. He drove 500 miles to her new home to eat a socially distant lunch with her.
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WHO's general assembly meets for second day. President Trump says he is taking a drug to protect against COVID-19. And, the Fed chairman and Treasure secretary will testify before a Senate panel.
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An update on coronavirus testing. Georgia authorities are investigating the fatal shooting of an unarmed black jogger. And, a small number of students in Montana go back to school Thursday.
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White House rejects government report projecting rising COVID-19 death toll. Some California stores will reopen as early as Friday. And, Venezuela's president says U.S. sent men to assassinate him.
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Even before the coronavirus pandemic, Ray Dalio of Bridgewater Associates warned the wealth gap represented a "national emergency." The outbreak, he says, is only exacerbating the challenges.