Joanna Kakissis
Joanna Kakissis is a foreign correspondent based in Kyiv, Ukraine, where she reports poignant stories of a conflict that has upended millions of lives, affected global energy and food supplies and pitted NATO against Russia.
Kakissis began reporting in Ukraine shortly before Russia invaded in February. She covered the exodus of refugees to Poland and has returned to Ukraine several times to chronicle the war. She has focused on the human costs, profiling the displaced, the families of prisoners of war and a ninety-year-old "mermaid" who swims in a mine-filled sea. Kakissis highlighted the tragedy for both sides with a story about the body of a Russian soldier abandoned in a hamlet he helped destroy, and she shed light on the potential for nuclear disaster with a report on the shelling of Nikopol by Russians occupying a nearby power plant.
Kakissis began reporting regularly for NPR from her base in Athens, Greece, in 2011. Her work has largely focused on the forces straining European unity — migration, nationalism and the rise of illiberalism in Hungary. She led coverage of the eurozone debt crisis and the mass migration of Syrian refugees to Europe. She's reported extensively in central and eastern Europe and has also filled in at NPR bureaus in Berlin, Istanbul, Jerusalem, London and Paris. She's a contributor to This American Life and has written for The New York Times, TIME, The New Yorker online and The Financial Times Magazine, among others. In 2021, she taught a journalism seminar as a visiting professor at Princeton University.
Kakissis was born in Greece, grew up in North and South Dakota and spent her early years in journalism at The News & Observer in Raleigh, North Carolina.
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Reporter Joanna Kakissis was born in Greece but raised in the U.S. She returned to Greece in 2010 as the country's economic crisis began. She describes covering a story that often hits close to home. -
The good news for Greeks is that banks are open again. The bad news is a sales tax hike that's made most things more expensive. It's an attempt to raise more tax revenue and balance the budget.
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The parliament starts debate Tuesday on the new bailout plan agreed to over the weekend with eurozone countries. Given the concessions Greece agreed to, it's likely to be a very stormy session.
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After a weekend spent glued to their televisions, average citizens still feel a lot of trepidation after Monday's announced deal. It's going to be hard to sell it to the Greek parliament and populace.
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From the capital to the countryside, there is pervasive fear in Greece as European leaders in Brussels debate the country's economic fate.
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As Greeks argue about how their troubled country should reform, the debate has often turned personal and nationalistic. Some people are even accusing each other of treason. -
Greek banks have been closed for more than a week, and it's unclear when they will reopen. Many Greeks are worried that if the banks collapse, they will lose everything. -
Greeks vote Sunday on a referendum that will determine the future of the country's troubled economy and the question of whether Greece remains part of the eurozone.
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Greeks are preparing for Sunday's referendum, which the government insists is about whether to accept more austerity. Critics say it's about keeping the euro.
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The referendum exposes a deep divide: those who feel Greece is the victim of a European conspiracy, and those who want to keep close ties with the rest of the continent.
