Mary Kay Magistad

Who is Mary Kay Magistad?

Mary Kay Magistad is an award-winning American journalist and correspondent.

Magistad has covered Northeast Asia for the Public Radio International program, PRI's The World, a co-production between the BBC World Service, PRI, and WGBH Radio Boston since 1996. In that capacity she has covered "the geopolitical struggle over North Korea's weapons program, to the SARS epidemic, to tensions in Kashmir, Magistad has brought local perspective to stories with international impact." She has also been a correspondent and reporter for National Public Radio, The Washington Post, and the Christian Science Monitor. She was responsible for opening the first Beijing bureau for National Public Radio. She has covered stories as varied as the rise of China as an economic power over the last decade, the fabric of Chinese society, Chinese war games preceding Taiwan's first presidential elections, the crackdown on the Falun Gong spiritual sect, and increasing tensions in the Sino-US relationship. She has also been a regular correspondent in Africa, where she has covered Ethiopian famine, the aftermath of genocide in Rwanda, and the Polisario's forgotten war in the Western Sahara.