Eleanor Beardsley

Eleanor Beardsley is a correspondent based in Paris covering French society, politics, economics, culture and gastronomy for National Public Radio. She has been reporting for NPR from France since 2004.

Early life

Beardsley was reared in Columbia, South Carolina where her father was a history professor at the University of South Carolina. She learned French from reading the Asterix comic books in French. Commentators including Rod Dreher have remarked on how unusual it is to hear a southern accent like Beardsley's coming from a national broadcaster. Ben Yagoda describes her pronunciation of, "lawl" (for law), as, "redolent of her native South Carolina."

She has a B.A. in French from Furman University.

Career

Beardsley worked on Senator Strom Thurmond's staff early in her career. In 2003 she was a spokesman for the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo. Beardsley reported from Kosovo during the Kosovo War. She has covered the Arab Spring in Tunisia and presidential elections in France. She also covered the terrorist attacks in Paris in November 2015.

External links

• Lecture at Florida State University
• Q&A: Talking Travel and France with NPR Journalist Eleanor Beardsley
• Biscuit Chat with Eleanor Beardsley