Tom Gjelten
Tom Gjelten reports on religion, faith, and belief for NPR News, a beat that encompasses such areas as the changing religious landscape in America, the formation of personal identity, the role of religion in politics, and conflict arising from religious differences. His reporting draws on his many years covering national and international news from posts in Washington and around the world.
In 1986, Gjelten became one of NPR's pioneer foreign correspondents, posted first in Latin America and then in Central Europe. Over the next decade, he covered social and political strife in Central and South America, the first Gulf War, the wars in the former Yugoslavia, and the transitions to democracy in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.
His reporting from Sarajevo from 1992 to 1994 was the basis for his book Sarajevo Daily: A City and Its Newspaper Under Siege (HarperCollins), praised by the New York Times as "a chilling portrayal of a city's slow murder." He is also the author of Professionalism in War Reporting: A Correspondent's View (Carnegie Corporation) and a contributor to Crimes of War: What the Public Should Know (W. W. Norton).
After returning from his overseas assignments, Gjelten covered U.S. diplomacy and military affairs, first from the State Department and then from the Pentagon. He was reporting live from the Pentagon at the moment it was hit on September 11, 2001, and he was NPR's lead Pentagon reporter during the early war in Afghanistan and the invasion of Iraq. Gjelten has also reported extensively from Cuba in recent years. His 2008 book, Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba: The Biography of a Cause (Viking), is a unique history of modern Cuba, told through the life and times of the Bacardi rum family. The New York Times selected it as a "Notable Nonfiction Book," and the Washington Post, Kansas City Star, and San Francisco Chronicle all listed it among their "Best Books of 2008." His latest book, A Nation of Nations: A Great American Immigration Story (Simon & Schuster), published in 2015, recounts the impact on America of the 1965 Immigration Act, which officially opened the country's doors to immigrants of color. He has also contributed to The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and other outlets.
Since joining NPR in 1982 as labor and education reporter, Gjelten has won numerous awards for his work, including two Overseas Press Club Awards, a George Polk Award, and a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. A graduate of the University of Minnesota, he began his professional career as a public school teacher and freelance writer.
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For both candidates on the Democratic Party ticket, religious faith has provided a foundation for their progressive politics. -
Jewish groups supported the civil rights movement in the 1960s. But for many current civil rights activists, solidarity with Palestinians takes precedence over the old solidarity with American Jews. -
Growing up, gay evangelicals may have thought they had to be one or the other. It's different now. At one welcoming Baptist church in Kentucky, a member says, gay congregants "walk through the door." -
America's culture war is being fought inside evangelical Christian circles. Some are resisting secular society's trends that conflict with biblical teaching. Others have found a way to live with them. -
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom says the refugee crisis, political strife and economic dislocation all contributed to a worldwide deterioration of religious freedom last year.
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The actor, who once played God in a Hollywood movie, takes a serious look at religion in a new television series called "The Story of God."
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A tribunal in The Hague has sentenced the former Bosnian Serb leader to 40 years in prison. NPR's Tom Gjelten, who covered the Bosnian war, explains the twists and turns in the case. -
The State Department says ISIS has committed "genocide" against Christians in Syria and Iraq, but the declaration may add up to more in U.S. domestic politics than in new action against the militants.
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Many Muslims say radicals who cite the Prophet Muhammad to justify violence misrepresent his teachings. To combat ISIS, they say, means strengthening the faithful's understanding of Islam's founder. -
For Muslim-Americans, there was a world before Sept. 11 and after. Now, the dual threats of extremism and atheism threaten them further. A group of friends in D.C. voice their frustrations, and hopes.
