Sonari Glinton
Sonari Glinton is a NPR Business Desk Correspondent based at our NPR West bureau. He covers the auto industry, consumer goods, and consumer behavior, as well as marketing and advertising for NPR and Planet Money.
In this position, which he has held since late 2010, Glinton has tackled big stories including GM's road back to profitability and Toyota's continuing struggles. In addition, Glinton covered the 2012 presidential race, the Winter Olympics in Sochi, as well as the U.S. Senate and House for NPR.
Glinton came to NPR in August 2007 and worked as a producer for All Things Considered. Over the years Glinton has produced dozen of segments about the great American Song Book and pop culture for NPR's signature programs most notably the 50 Great Voices piece on Nat King Cole feature he produced for Robert Siegel.
Glinton began his public radio career as an intern at Member station WBEZ in Chicago. He worked his way through his public radio internships working for Chicago Jazz impresario Joe Segal, waiting tables and meeting legends such as Ray Brown, Oscar Brown Jr., Marian MacPartland, Ed Thigpen, Ernestine Andersen, and Betty Carter.
Glinton attended Boston University. A Sinatra fan since his mid-teens, Glinton's first forays into journalism were album revues and a college jazz show at Boston University's WTBU. In his spare time Glinton indulges his passions for baking, vinyl albums, and the evolution of the Billboard charts.
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NewsWe take a look at what it will take for Volkswagen to get its pollution belching diesels into compliance, and the tradeoffs in terms of other emissions and fuel economy. But can it win back customers?
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Volkswagen's cheating on emission tests for its diesel vehicles has not only stirred a controversy; it has also raised a question: Is there life left for diesel in the U.S.?
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Arvind Thiruvengadam and colleagues at WVU got excited when they won a grant in 2012 to test emissions on a few diesel cars. He figured the data might result in some papers a few people might read. -
General Motors has agreed to pay $900 million to settle criminal charges related to an ignition switch defect, which was tied to the deaths of at least 124 people. No GM executives were charged.
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Only about 53 percent of Americans own stocks, and those who do mostly have them in retirement accounts they may not tap for decades. So the stock market's recent drop won't have much effect on them.
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NewsTheir sales have dropped by more than 40 percent in the past decade. And with new tougher fuel economy standards, the days of riding with the top down could be numbered.
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German families in the 60s loved cheap American-raised chicken. And Americans loved cheap VW Beetles. We hear how a trade dispute over frozen chicken parts changed the American auto industry.
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In the 1960s, Tom Burrell became the first black man in Chicago advertising. In this "Planet Money" report, we hear how he changed the way people think about ads, and how advertising thinks about us.
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Severe storms are creating massive flooding in Texas, Oklahoma and throughout the Great Plains. Meteorologists say this downpour most likely ended the years long drought for that portion of the West — but it comes at a high cost.
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Muscle cars of the 1960s and 70s, with their oversized engines and racing stripes, hit the skids when oil prices soared. But in Detroit, some are calling now the new golden era of the muscle car.
