NPR hires Spicer as Europe editor

In a note to newsroom staff, Didrik Schanche, chief international editor at NPR, made the following announcement:

Dear All,

I am pleased to announce that veteran journalist Nick Spicer is joining NPR on February 26th as Europe Editor.

Nick is a reporter who is comfortable on air, online and on screen. He most recently worked as a presenter and reporter for Deutsche Welle and France 24. He also has been a media teacher at HMKW University in Berlin, training scores of TV journalists in storytelling in the field, live performance, and studio presenting, as well as teaching upcoming newsroom managers how to work across multiple platforms.

A Canadian and French citizen, he served as CBC’s bilingual TV bureau chief in Moscow, covering the post-Soviet era as well as the Orange Revolution in Ukraine in 2004. For the next two decades, Nick focused on that country’s troubled path between East and West, reporting on the 2014 Dignity Revolution, the annexation of Crimea, as well as the 2022 invasion and its consequences.

Nick also has reported in the US, working as a travelling Al Jazeera correspondent based in DC from 2007-2010, covering the unlikely candidacy of then-Sen. Barack Obama, race issues, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, gun violence in Chicago, as well as the debates around the drawing down of US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. He moved from there to Berlin, opening the Al Jazeera bureau in 2011, covering a zone corresponding somewhat to what was once the Hapsburg Empire, but also terror attacks in Norway and other places, and occasionally working in the Middle East.

He also is no stranger to NPR. He reported from Paris for the network starting in 2001, covering European reaction to the 9/11 attacks as well as the war crimes trials for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague. He later went to Iraq to cover the conflict there and also to Libya.

Nick grew up speaking English and French and also can work in German and Russian. He’s written an as yet unpublished nuclear thriller set in Ukraine, Russia and Germany. In his spare time, he, says he is “a mediocre runner and pianist.”

Nick’s official first day is Feb. 26. He will be at HQ the following week for orientation and training and ultimately will be based in DC.

Please join me in welcoming him to NPR.

Cheers,