Gregory Warner
Gregory Warner is the host of NPR's Rough Translation, a podcast about how things we're talking about in the United States are being talked about in some other part of the world. Whether interviewing a Ukrainian debunker of Russian fake news, a Japanese apology broker navigating different cultural meanings of the word "sorry," or a German dating coach helping a Syrian refugee find love, Warner's storytelling approach takes us out of our echo chambers and leads us to question the way we talk about the world. Rough Translation has received the Lowell Thomas Award from the Overseas Press Club and a Scripps Howard Award.
In his role as host, Warner draws on his own overseas experience. As NPR's East Africa correspondent, he covered the diverse issues and voices of a region that experienced unparalleled economic growth as well as a rising threat of global terrorism. Before joining NPR, he reported from conflict zones around the world as a freelancer. He climbed mountains with smugglers in Pakistan for This American Life, descended into illegal mineshafts in the Democratic Republic of Congo for Marketplace's "Working" series, and lugged his accordion across Afghanistan on the trail of the "Afghan Elvis" for Radiolab.
Warner has also worked as senior reporter for American Public Media's Marketplace, endeavoring to explain the economics of American health care. He's used puppets to illustrate the effects of Internet diagnostics on the doctor-patient relationship, and composed a Suessian poem to explain the correlation between health care job growth and national debt. His musical journey into the shadow world of medical coding won a Best News Feature award from the Third Coast International Audio Festival.
Warner has won a Peabody Award and awards from Edward R. Murrow, New York Festivals, AP, and PRNDI. He earned his degree in English from Yale University.
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College students and recent graduates crammed the top floor of a tech hub in Nairobi for a competition built around the theme "Solutions for the Next Billion Mobile Users." Africa has more than 600 million mobile phone users (approximately 11 percent of the global total) – and the number is growing. -
Thousands of prisoners are held in detention camps throughout Eritrea, according to Amnesty International. Here's the story of one man who made it out. -
The defenders of Africa's rhinos are battling a well-financed and well-informed enemy. Poachers clear $40,000 or more for a single rhino horn. They have cash for the latest weaponry and to pay for inside information from some of the very people whose job it is to protect the rhinos. -
To know how elephants are faring, they need to be counted. But how do you count them when they're hidden under thick forest canopies? A conservationist in the 1980s started to count their poop, and that helped to create a model of elephants' numbers and movement through the forest. -
Dissent is not tolerated in Eritrea, so exiles from the African nation had to get creative when it came to organizing opposition. They are now relying on robocalls that tell Eritreans to stay home Friday evening, the night traditionally devoted to going out. -
Boeing's 787 Dreamliner was supposed to be a game changing new aircraft, but battery problems grounded the fleet, costing Boeing an estimated $600 million. Now the Federal Aviation Administration has approved a fix to the battery issue, and the first Dreamliner will return to the skies this weekend in Africa. Ethiopian Airlines is relaunching the "continent's first" Dreamliner in its effort to distinguish itself in the increasingly competitive, increasingly crowded African aerospace market.
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This model was hailed as a success in Somalia and is now being marshaled to fight rebels in the eastern Congo. It involves Western nations providing financial support to African troops who do the peacekeeping. But why are African countries so silent about their casualty figures? -
Bosco Ntaganda showed up unexpectedly at the U.S. Embassy in Kigali. While officials puzzle out the details of transporting him to his new detention cell in The Hague, others are wondering if his former cohorts — still pillaging Eastern Congo — might use the arrest to broker their own impunity. -
It was supposed to be the most modern election in African history. Biometric identification kits, computerized registration rolls and an SMS transmission of results. It all went spectacularly wrong. -
Kenya's presidential election has yielded hundreds of thousands of spoiled ballots — and raised the possibility of a contentious and costly runoff election in April. Amid allegations of vote-rigging, there are others who say there may be a more innocent reason for so many rejected ballots.