Corey Flintoff

Corey Flintoff is NPR's Moscow Correspondent. His journalism career has taken him to more than 50 countries, most recently to cover the civil war in Libya, the revolution in Egypt and the war in Afghanistan.

After joining NPR in 1990, Flintoff worked for many years as a newscaster during All Things Considered. In 2005, he became part of the NPR team covering the Iraq War, where he embedded with U.S. military units fighting insurgents and hunting roadside bombs.

Flintoff's reporting from Iraq includes stories on sectarian killings, government corruption, the Christian refugee crisis and the destruction of Iraq's southern marshes. In 2010, he traveled to Haiti to report on the massive earthquake its aftermath. Two years before, he reported on his stint on a French warship chasing pirates off the coast of Somalia.

One of Flintoff's favorite side jobs at NPR is standing in for Carl Kasell during those rare times when the venerable scorekeeper takes a break from Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me!

Before NPR, Flintoff served as the executive producer and host of Alaska News Nightly, a daily news magazine produced by the Alaska Public Radio Network in Anchorage. His coverage of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill was recognized with the 1989 Corporation for Public Broadcasting Award.

In 1977, Flintoff got his start in public radio working at at KYUK-AM/TV, in Bethel, Alaska. KYUK is a bilingual English-Yup'ik Eskimo station and Flintoff learned just enough Yup'ik to announce the station identification. He wrote and produced a number of television documentaries about Alaskan life, including "They Never Asked Our Fathers" and "Eyes of the Spirit," which have aired on PBS and are now in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution.

He tried his hand at commercial herring fishing, dog-mushing, fiction writing and other pursuits, but failed to break out of the radio business.

Flintoff has a bachelor's degree from the University of California at Berkeley and a master's degree from the University of Chicago, both in English literature. In 2011, he was awarded an honorary doctorate degree from Drexel University.

Pages

Europe
7:45 am
Sun September 30, 2012

Shocking Video Could Throw Georgian Election

Originally published on Sun September 30, 2012 8:04 am

Transcript

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Rachel Martin.

Read more
World
4:50 pm
Fri September 28, 2012

Crucial Parliamentary Elections Near In Georgia

Originally published on Fri September 28, 2012 7:24 pm

Transcript

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

On Monday, the Republic of Georgia holds a crucial parliamentary election. It will decide whether the government of President Mikheil Saakashvili will keep its hold on power. It's been nine years since the pro-democracy movement known as the Rose Revolution. Saakashvili was once a favorite of U.S. lawmakers, who saw him as one of a new breed of reformers in the countries of the former Soviet Union. Since then, though, his government has been accused of repressive tactics and corruption.

Read more
Religion
5:08 pm
Tue September 25, 2012

For Hasidic Jews, A Slow, Steady Rebirth In Russia

Credit Sergei Sotnikov / NPR
Dovid Karpov has been the rabbi at the Darkei Shalom synagogue since it was built 15 years ago. Like many people in his congregation, Karpov grew up in a Soviet-era family that was not religious. He says he had to learn his faith for himself.

Originally published on Fri October 12, 2012 4:24 pm

About a dozen men prayed recently at Darkei Shalom, a Hasidic Jewish synagogue in the working-class neighborhood of Otradnoye in north Moscow.

Except for the Star of David on its squat tower, the building is as plain and utilitarian as the linoleum on the floor. It sits — along with a Russian Orthodox church and a mosque — on a leafy stretch of land surrounded by towering apartment blocks.

Read more
World
5:18 am
Wed September 12, 2012

Some Believe U.S.-Russia Ties Will Weaken

Originally published on Wed September 12, 2012 9:28 pm

Transcript

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Foreign policy has not played much of a role in the presidential campaign, but we have a reminder this morning of how important it is to any president. And today we continue our series on foreign policy and this fall's election. We're going to focus on Russia. As NPR's Corey Flintoff reports, no matter who wins, Russians are worried.

Read more
Europe
2:38 am
Wed September 5, 2012

Educated Russians Often Lured To Leave

Originally published on Fri September 14, 2012 11:43 am

Russia has been facing troubling demographics ever since the Soviet breakup two decades ago. The population has contracted by several million people over this period. The birth rate is low. Life expectancy for men is still less than 65 years.

And there is also a sense that many educated, talented people are leaving the country.

To take one example, the world of science lit up in July, when a billionaire Internet investor named Yuri Milner announced nine prizes for some of the world's most innovative thinkers in physics.

Read more
World
6:24 am
Sun September 2, 2012

In Russia, 200-Year-Old Battle A Day To Remember

Originally published on Sun September 2, 2012 1:08 pm

Two hundred years ago this week, Napoleon Bonaparte fought a battle in Russia that may have begun his undoing. He led his Grand Army against the Imperial Russian Army near a village called Borodino, about 70 miles from Moscow.

It was the single bloodiest day of the Napoleonic Wars, and it's remembered by Russians as a symbol of national courage. An army of re-enactors relived that Sunday.

Read more
Europe
5:53 pm
Wed August 22, 2012

Attacks Raise Specter Of Radical Islam In Russia

Originally published on Wed August 22, 2012 8:06 pm

Authorities in Russia fear that Muslim radicals are grasping for power in the central Russian republic of Tatarstan. Analysts say the radicals have infiltrated Tatarstan's Muslim establishment, seeking to undermine the moderate Islam that has co-existed with Christianity for centuries.

Some worry that Tatarstan could go the way of other predominantly Muslim republics, such as Chechnya and Dagestan, where clashes between Islamist insurgents and Russian security forces have taken thousands of lives.

Read more
World
6:21 am
Sun August 19, 2012

Joining WTO, Russian Aims For Brighter Future

Originally published on Thu August 23, 2012 6:16 pm

Transcript

LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:

Read more
Europe
5:08 pm
Fri August 17, 2012

Russian Rockers Get Prison Sentences

Originally published on Fri August 17, 2012 6:03 pm

Transcript

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Melissa Block. Human rights groups are denouncing the sentence handed down today to members of the Russian feminist punk band, Pussy Riot. The group's crimes? It staged a protest in Moscow's main Russian Orthodox Cathedral last winter. A judge convicted the three women of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred and sentenced each of them to two years in a labor camp.

Read more
Europe
5:18 pm
Thu August 16, 2012

Raid In Russia Brings Underground Sect To Light

Originally published on Thu August 16, 2012 6:41 pm

The recent headlines in the Russian press were sensational: Members of a reclusive Islamic sect were said to be living in an isolated compound with underground burrows, some as deep as eight stories underground, without electricity or heat.

Reporters have descended on the compound, on the outskirts of the city of Kazan, but have had only limited access and have not been able to confirm all the allegations by Russian officials.

Read more

Pages