Lourdes Garcia-Navarro is a foreign correspondent with National Public Radio.
She has distinguished herself as a tenacious war correspondent and a gifted writer.
Garcia-Navarro studied international relations at Georgetown University and later obtained a Master's degree in journalism at the City University London. She started her career working as a freelance journalist for the BBC World Service and Voice of America, traveling to Cuba, Syria, Panama and several European countries on assignment for the two organizations.
She was hired by Associated Press Television News as a producer in 1999 and later worked for the news agency's radio branch. AP dispatched Garcia-Navarro to Kosovo in 1999; Colombia in 2000; Afghanistan in 2001; Israel in 2002; and Iraq from 2002 to 2004.[1]
Garcia-Navarro traveled to Iraq on assignment before the 2003 war and covered the invasion as a unilateral reporter.[2]
Garcia-Navarro joined National Public Radio in November 2004 as Mexico City Bureau Chief. She moved to Baghdad in January 2008, where she oversaw NPR's Iraq coverage for over a year. She has been based in Jerusalem for NPR since April 2009.
Garcia-Navarro was born in London, where her mother was a diplomat and her father worked as a businessman. She grew up in England, Switzerland and the United States. She speaks English, Spanish and French fluently.
Garcia-Navarro was awarded the 2006 Daniel Schorr Journalism Prize for her work in Mexico. She belonged to teams that received the 2005 Peabody Award and the 2007 Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia University Silver Baton Award, which recognized NPR's Iraq coverage.
Lourdes Garcia-Navarro married Times of London journalist James Hider on September 18, 2010 in El Valle de Anton, Republic of Panama.
In February 2011, Garcia-Navarro was one of the first reporters to enter Libya after the uprising there. She has since covered events in both the East of the country and the capital Tripoli.