Brian Mann
Brian Mann is NPR's first national addiction correspondent. He also covers breaking news in the U.S. and around the world.
Mann began covering drug policy and the opioid crisis as part of a partnership between NPR and North Country Public Radio in New York. After joining NPR full time in 2020, Mann was one of the first national journalists to track the deadly spread of the synthetic opioid fentanyl, reporting from California and Washington state to West Virginia.
After losing his father and stepbrother to substance abuse, Mann's reporting breaks down the stigma surrounding addiction and creates a factual basis for the ongoing national discussion.
Mann has also served on NPR teams covering the Beijing Winter Olympics and the war in Ukraine.
During a career in public radio that began in the 1980s, Mann has won numerous regional and national Edward R. Murrow awards. He is author of a 2006 book about small town politics called Welcome to the Homeland, described by The Atlantic as "one of the best books to date on the putative-red-blue divide."
Mann grew up in Alaska and is now based in New York's Adirondack Mountains. His audio postcards, broadcast on NPR, describe his backcountry trips into wild places around the world.
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A group of 18 state attorneys general signed on to a lawsuit filed Tuesday seeking to block the administration's move, describing it as unconstitutional. -
Former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani was scheduled to be a witness in a case set to determine which assets he would have to forfeit after he lied about two Georgia election workers. -
Ukrainian forces are fighting to hold on to the key city of Pokrovsk, in one of the fiercest battles in eastern Ukraine, but commanders admit the Russians have more troops and firepower. -
NPR visits a secret drone command center near the front lines in eastern Ukraine, where crews are using remote-controlled aircraft to hunt Russian soldiers on the battlefield. -
The powerful consulting firm McKinsey will "accept responsibility" and pay $650 million for helping to fuel the opioid crisis, but executives will once again dodge prosecution. -
New York City is home to more than eight million people but NPR's Brian Mann mapped out an urban hike through solitude and parkland wildness. -
President-elect Donald Trump has promised a crackdown on fentanyl dealers that could include military strikes against cartels in Mexico. Many experts worry his plan will do harm than good. -
President-elect Trump won landslide support in much of farm country, but his embrace of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his plan for a tariff fight with China alarms many farmers and agriculture experts. -
A new CDC report shows at least 16,000 lives were saved over a 12-month period. Experts say the U.S. is experiencing the biggest drop in fatal overdoses seen since the opioid crisis began in the 90s. -
NPR's Brian Mann slipped away from his desk during a hectic week for an early morning canoe paddle on a wild river in Vermont.
