John Dinges' Bio

John Dinges may be best known to AIR members from his days as managing editor for news at NPR in the mid-90's. In addition to working at NPR, John co-wrote and edited the bible of public radio reporting, Sound Reporting: The NPR Guide to Radio Journalism, but unlike the real Bible, it's all but impossible to find in bookstores. He also the editor of Independence and Integrity: A Guidebook for Public Radio Journalism (1995). An Iowa native, John was a cub reporter for the Des Moines Register. Then, he moved to South America and started stringing for The Washington Post, which eventually hired him as their Latin American special correspondent and foreign desk editor. While in Chile, he survived being interrogated at a secret Chilean torture camp and reported first hand the human rights violations Chile suffered under Pinochet. John didn't think that was a big enough job, so he started filing his first radio stories and discovered that his radio reporting made his print writing stronger. He was hooked.

After NPR, in 1996, John took the helm of the radio program at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Under his leadership, the program has grown from a handful of students to over-filled classes. Students at Columbia learn to produce NPR-style radio features using Pro Tools and to produce full-length broadcasts, which are streamed live on the Web.

John's is also an award-winning investigative reporter. He's written two books: Assassination on Embassy Row (1980) and Our Man in Panama: The Shrewd Rise and Brutal Fall of Manuel Noriega (1990); and he's just finished his third, The Condor Years: How Pinochet and His Allies Brought Terrorism to Three Continents (The New Press Fall 2003). He the recipient of the Maria Moors Cabot Prize for excellence in Latin American reporting and shared two DuPont Columbia prizes as part of the NPR team. He's also a founding member of the National Writer's Union, currently serving on its national advisory board and delegates assembly.

Audio
Check out the most recent broadcast of the John Dinges' students at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.