Rob Schmitz
Rob Schmitz is NPR's international correspondent based in Berlin, where he covers the human stories of a vast region reckoning with its past while it tries to guide the world toward a brighter future. From his base in the heart of Europe, Schmitz has covered Germany's levelheaded management of the COVID-19 pandemic, the rise of right-wing nationalist politics in Poland and creeping Chinese government influence inside the Czech Republic.
Prior to covering Europe, Schmitz provided award-winning coverage of China for a decade, reporting on the country's economic rise and increasing global influence. His reporting on China's impact beyond its borders took him to countries such as Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Vietnam, Thailand, Australia, and New Zealand. Inside China, he's interviewed elderly revolutionaries, young rappers, and live-streaming celebrity farmers who make up the diverse tapestry of one of the most fascinating countries on the planet. He is the author of the critically acclaimed book Street of Eternal Happiness: Big City Dreams Along a Shanghai Road (Crown/Random House 2016), a profile of individuals who live, work, and dream along a single street that runs through the heart of China's largest city. The book won several awards and has been translated into half a dozen languages. In 2018, China's government banned the Chinese version of the book after its fifth printing. The following year it was selected as a finalist for the Ryszard Kapuściński Award, Poland's most prestigious literary prize.
Schmitz has won numerous awards for his reporting on China, including two national Edward R. Murrow Awards and an Education Writers Association Award. His work was also a finalist for the Investigative Reporters and Editors Award. His reporting in Japan — from the hardest-hit areas near the failing Fukushima nuclear power plant following the earthquake and tsunami — was included in the publication 100 Great Stories, celebrating the centennial of Columbia University's Journalism School. In 2012, Schmitz exposed the fabrications in Mike Daisey's account of Apple's supply chain on This American Life. His report was featured in the show's "Retraction" episode. In 2011, New York's Rubin Museum of Art screened a documentary Schmitz shot in Tibetan regions of China about one of the last living Tibetans who had memorized "Gesar of Ling," an epic poem that tells of Tibet's ancient past.
From 2010 to 2016, Schmitz was the China correspondent for American Public Media's Marketplace. He's also worked as a reporter for NPR Member stations KQED, KPCC and MPR. Prior to his radio career, Schmitz lived and worked in China — first as a teacher for the Peace Corps in the 1990s, and later as a freelance print and video journalist. He also lived in Spain for two years. He speaks Mandarin and Spanish. He has a bachelor's degree in Spanish literature from the University of Minnesota, Duluth, and a master's degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.
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The far-right Freedom Party of Austria has won the most votes in national parliamentary elections but has fallen short of an absolute majority.
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German Chancellor Scholz’s liberal party narrowly beat the country’s largest far-right party in a regional election seen as a litmus test for where politics are headed in Europe’s biggest economy.
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Germany's far-right party is campaigning with AI-generated videos warning of the supposed dangers of migration for the upcoming regional vote. Critics call the ads racist.
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Heavy rainfall that created flooding in several countries in Central Europe has led to the evacuations of tens of thousands, and the deaths of at least 16 people.
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As Europeans debate over the environmental impact of mining lithium, a project in Germany shows how to do it without leaving a carbon footprint.
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Climate change is driving more extreme weather events in the region where many cocoa beans are grown. A brother-sister team in Germany is working on a solution: making chocolate without cocoa beans.
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Beginning next week, Germany will start to introduce border checks along all of its nine land borders. The country aims to reduce what it calls “irregular migration.”
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Germany’s largest industrial employer, Volkswagen, is reportedly considering closing at least two plants in Germany after years of declining value and a struggle to transition to electric vehicles.
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Voters in two German states deliver a boost to the country's far-right party, the Alternativ für Deutschland.
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The Alternative for Germany party made huge gains in two eastern states, handing the German far right its best results since World War II.