Gloria Hillard

Gloria Hillard is a contributing correspondent for NPR’s National Desk. Her stories can be heard regularly on NPR’s award-winning news programs, including All Things Considered, Morning Edition and Weekend Edition.

Recognized for her signature storytelling, Hillard’s reports are frequently among the network’s most popular and shared stories.  

Hillard has provided ongoing coverage of the homeless in Los Angeles, focusing on the women and children at the epicenter of crisis.  She has taken listeners behind the front lines of drug addiction; into the homes of grieving mothers in South L.A who have lost children to gang violence; and exposed the human trafficking of young women who end up in the commercial sex industry.

Years after the film Erin Brokovich, Hillard paid a visit to the town of Hinkley reporting it had become a near ghost town and its residents were still being sickened by toxic water from PG&E.

She has reported on the anti-poaching efforts to save endangered tortoises, and traveled from the forests of Hawaii where the sound of birds is disappearing due to climate change, to the high desert of California and a Wolf Sanctuary where abused wolves and teens help heal each other.

Since 2003, Hillard has covered the impact of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars on returning service members and their families. And she followed the story of a young girl from Afghanistan ravaged by that war.   

When the Los Angeles Times recognized NPR for the high quality of its reporting. Hillard’s reporting was noted.

 Just in the last few weeks it broadcast a tough but fair story by Melissa Block about the fierce emotions released by the sesquicentennial of the Civil War, which highlighted that conflict's ongoing relevance; a moving piece by Wade Goodwyn about the suicide of an Iraq War veteran suffering post-traumatic stress disorder; a thorough report by Gloria Hillard about crystal meth addiction in Riverside County; and dozens of other stories you couldn't find elsewhere.

Prior to her work for NPR, Hillard was a CNN correspondent for 15 years. Based in Los Angeles, she reported the major news stories of the region as well as providing the network with heartfelt, humorous and inspirational glimpses of our world.  In her regular feature, Hillard’s Hollywood, she interviewed and profiled numerous newsmakers and cultural icons- including politicians, musicians, actors and best-selling authors.