John Burnett
NPR National CorrespondentAs NPR's Southwest correspondent based in Austin, Texas, John Burnett covers immigration, 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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Traffickers are reportedly forcing illegal border crossers to smuggle drugs into the U.S. For courts along the border, it's a struggle to decide how to deal with terrified migrants, especially when there's no proof to their claims. -
As the longest-serving governor of Texas, Rick Perry has overseen the application of the death penalty more than any other U.S. governor — 236 times, and counting. But Perry actually has little to do with the mechanics of capital punishment in his state. And, some criminal justice reformers say, he's anything but a hang-'em-high governor. -
Like thousands of other people here whose homes were incinerated by a wildfire in Bastrop County, Texas, Linda and Roger Ward are living in a daze. The fire was not the deadliest wildfire or the largest in acreage. But in terms of destruction — 1,554 homes and counting — it is one of the worst forest fires in recent U.S. history. -
Texas Gov. Rick Perry heats up the atmosphere every time he talks about climate change. He's an avowed global warming doubter who once quipped, "The biggest source of carbon dioxide is Al Gore's mouth." -
Ferocious wildfires shipped by the winds of tropical storm Lee are surrounding Austin and other parts of dust-dry Texas. The worst fire is in Bastrop County, just southeast of Austin, where the blaze has been burning out of control for more than a day. The scale of the blaze prompted Gov. Rick Perry to cancel his appearance at a GOP event.
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The two leading GOP presidential candidates got a warm welcome at the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in San Antonio this week. Texas Gov. Rick Perry and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney both boasted of their support for the military and aimed their vitriol at President Obama. -
The unfolding calamity that is the Texas drought has thrown nature out of balance. Many of the wild things that live in this state are suffering. -
Protesters lined the sidewalks Saturday as about 30,000 Christians gathered in Houston's Reliant Stadium to pray for what they called "a nation in crisis." In the weeks leading up to the gathering, the event had been criticized as an attempt by the Republican governor to get an early lock on the religious right. Saturday, Perry shrugged off such talk. -
The Republican Texas governor, who is widely expected to enter the race for the White House, says Saturday's event is nothing more than a Christian prayer rally. His critics, however, say it is Jesus-exclusive andpolitical. The event is sponsored by an organization that some consider a hate group because of its anti-gay agenda. -
Texas Gov. Rick Perry has bashed the Obama administration for not doing more to secure the southwest border. In response, the governor has dispatched the state police to show up the feds and fight his own border war.
