Elise Hu
Elise Hu is a host-at-large based at NPR West in Culver City, Calif. Previously, she explored the future with her video series, Future You with Elise Hu, and served as the founding bureau chief and International Correspondent for NPR's Seoul office. She was based in Seoul for nearly four years, responsible for the network's coverage of both Koreas and Japan, and filed from a dozen countries across Asia.
Before joining NPR, she was one of the founding reporters at The Texas Tribune, a non-profit digital news startup devoted to politics and public policy. While at the Tribune, Hu oversaw television partnerships and multimedia projects, contributed to The New York Times' expanded Texas coverage, and pushed for editorial innovation across platforms.
An honors graduate of the University of Missouri-Columbia's School of Journalism, she previously worked as the state political reporter for KVUE-TV in Austin, WYFF-TV in Greenville, SC, and reported from Asia for the Taipei Times.
Her work at NPR has earned a DuPont-Columbia award and a Gracie Award from the Alliance for Women in Media for her video series, Elise Tries. Her previous work has earned a Gannett Foundation Award for Innovation in Watchdog Journalism, a National Edward R. Murrow award for best online video, and beat reporting awards from the Texas Associated Press. The Austin Chronicle once dubiously named her the "Best TV Reporter Who Can Write."
Outside of work, Hu has taught digital journalism at Northwestern University and Georgetown University's journalism schools and served as a guest co-host for TWIT.tv's program, Tech News Today. She's on the board of Grist Magazine and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
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"It probably is the strangest story that I have encountered about North Korean elites and the Kim family," says Michael Madden, who runs the site North Korea Leadership Watch. -
Pyongyang again defied United Nations resolutions and test-fired a missile early Sunday morning, local time. It earned a swift rebuke from neighbors. -
After President Trump's taunts about Toyota and Japanese currency, Japan's prime minister arrives for talks in which he's expected to propose billions in infrastructure investment in the U.S. -
This week Defense Secretary James Mattis takes his first overseas trip, to South Korea and Japan. The U.S. allies are eager to hear what he has to say. -
After defecting, the ex-diplomat told his sons: "You can go to the Internet, you can do Internet games whenever you like, you can read any books, watch any films." In North Korea, this was impossible. -
Judges in Seoul said early Thursday there was insufficient cause to arrest the head of South Korea's most powerful conglomerate. But he's not exonerated. -
Jay Y. Lee, the de facto head of Samsung Electronics, is accused of paying tens of millions of dollars in bribes to a confidant of President Park Geun-hye in a growing influence-peddling scandal. -
Japan is known for its closed, heavily-male political and business worlds. But three women have recently assumed prominent political posts. Is it a sign of changing times? -
The 2018 Paralympic mascot is the Asiatic black bear, a symbol of Korean folklore. But behind the caricature, South Korea has a troubled relationship with the bears, farming them for their bile. -
Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe joined President Barack Obama to pay tribute to victims of the attack. Robert Siegel talks with NPR's Elise Hu about Japan-U.S. relations going forward.
