Indira Lakshmanan

PULITZER CENTER ALUM

Indira Lakshmanan was executive editor at the Pulitzer Center. As of January 2020, she was named senior executive editor at National Geographic, one of the Pulitzer Center's longstanding media partners. 

Indira has reported from more than 80 countries on six continents for leading U.S. newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and a wire service. She's traveled with US presidents and secretaries of state, and interviewed and profiled global leaders, including Hillary Clinton, Hugo Chavez, and Fidel Castro. She's been a Washington columnist for The Boston Globe, following eight years at Bloomberg News as a diplomatic correspondent and national political reporter. For two years while at Bloomberg, she also wrote a "Letter from Washington" column for the International New York Times. Since 2015, she has guest-hosted national NPR shows including "1A," "The Diane Rehm Show," "Here and Now," "On Point" and "Weekend Edition." She has also been a special correspondent for PBS NewsHour and Politico Magazine.

Most recently, she was the first Newmark chair in journalism ethics at the Poynter Institute, where she focused on restoring trust in journalism, led the Poynter Media Trust Surveys, and convened US news executives, anchors, and reporters on transparency and accuracy when the press and the truth are under attack. Indira has served on the PBS editorial standards committee, and is a frequent radio and TV commentator. 

Previously, Indira spent a dozen years as a foreign correspondent and bureau chief for The Boston Globe on four continents. She covered the Bosnian War, the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and the drug war in Colombia. She investigated ties between Abu Sayyaf militants and officials in the Philippines; tracked the spread of SARS in China; and embedded with sea pirates in the Philippines, Maoist rebels in Nepal, US Special Forces in Afghanistan, and Khmer Rouge holdouts in Cambodia. Her reporting exposed child labor in Bolivia, illegal logging in Brazil, corruption in China, and helped end the incarceration of innocent children in Nepal. For the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine, she spent time with the only matriarchal society in Asia and the last shaman-guardians of a vanishing hieroglyphic language in China.

Indira started her career on the foreign desk at National Public Radio, for whom she reported from Chile and Washington. 

Indira graduated from Harvard University and did graduate studies at Oxford University. Her awards include a Nieman journalism fellowship. 

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