Tara Neill

Tara Neill is the Deputy international Editor and also covers Africa and Latin America on the International desk.

Before coming to NPR in 2022, Neill spent 25 years at the BBC, working her way up from a researcher at BBC Westminster, to executive producer on BBC Radio 4 stable of news programs The World At One, PM, The World This Weekend and Broadcasting House.

Then started her globe-trotting years, as one of a handful roving BBC senior news producers working across international news. She's covered elections in over a dozen countries, from democracies to dictatorships; natural disasters, from earthquakes, mudslides, cyclones and hurricanes; conflicts from Somalia, DR Congo, Cote D'Ivoire, South Sudan, Libya, Syria, Ukraine, Iraq and Gaza; major events like the football world cup, Beijing Olympics, and more international, UN and EU summits then you can shake a stick at.

Neill then spent six years in Africa, based in Johannesburg, as the BBC's senior producer, covering the joy of the 2010 World Cup, to the death of Nelson Mandela and the fall of Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe for radio, TV and digital.

After Africa, she moved to the USA as the BBC's deputy bureau chief for the Americas. Based in the bureau in Washington DC she helped to lead a team of more than 100 journalists in the BBC's busiest international bureau. During her nearly 10 years in there she was involved in and oversaw the coverage of some of the biggest news stories recent years – from the Trump Presidency, the death of Fidel Castro, the death of George Floyd and the aftermath, the covid pandemic, and a fair number of disasters – both natural and manmade, along the way.

She doesn't have much spare time, but she rather likes spending what she does have with her family. She has a weakness for a good noir novel and always, a decent cup of tea.