Don Gonyea
You're most likely to find NPR's Don Gonyea on the road, in some battleground state looking for voters to sit with him at the local lunch spot, the VFW or union hall, at a campaign rally, or at their kitchen tables to tell him what's on their minds. Through countless such conversations over the course of the year, he gets a ground-level view of American elections. Gonyea is NPR's National Political Correspondent, a position he has held since 2010. His reports can be heard on all NPR News programs and at NPR.org. To hear his sound-rich stories is akin to riding in the passenger seat of his rental car, traveling through Iowa or South Carolina or Michigan or wherever, right along with him.
Gonyea has been covering politics full-time for NPR since the 2000 presidential campaign. That's the year he chronicled a controversial election and the ensuing legal recount battle in Florida that awarded the White House to George W. Bush. Gonyea was named NPR White House Correspondent that year and subsequently covered the entirety of the Bush presidency, from 2001-2008. He was at the White House on the morning of Sept. 11, providing live reports following the evacuation of the building.
As White House correspondent, Gonyea covered the Bush administration's prosecution of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. During the 2004 campaign, he traveled with both Bush and Democratic nominee John Kerry. He has served as co-anchor of NPR's election night coverage, and in 2008 Gonyea was the lead reporter covering Barack Obama's presidential campaign for NPR, from the Iowa caucuses to victory night in Chicago.
Gonyea has filed stories from around the globe, including Moscow, Beijing, London, Islamabad, Doha, Budapest, Seoul, San Salvador, and Hanoi. He attended President Bush's first-ever meeting with Russia's Vladimir Putin in Slovenia in 2001, as well as subsequent — and at times testy — meetings between the two leaders in St. Petersburg, Shanghai, and Bratislava. He also covered Obama's first trip overseas as president. During the 2016 election, he traveled extensively with both GOP nominee Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. His coverage of union members and white working class voters in the Midwest also gave early insight into how candidate Trump would tap into economic anxiety to win the presidency.
In 1986, Gonyea got his start at NPR reporting from Michigan on labor unions and the automobile industry. His first public radio job was at station WDET in Detroit. He has spent countless hours on picket lines and in union halls covering strikes at the major US auto companies, along with other labor disputes. Gonyea also reported on the development of alternative fuel and hybrid vehicles, Dr. Jack Kevorkian's assisted-suicide crusade, and the 1999 closing of Detroit's classic Tiger Stadium.
He serves as a fill-in host on NPR news magazines Morning Edition, All Things Considered, Weekend Edition, and Weekend All Things Considered.
Over the years, Gonyea has contributed to PBS's NewsHour, the BBC, CBC, AP Radio, and the Columbia Journalism Review. He periodically teaches college journalism courses.
Gonyea has won numerous national and state awards for his reporting. He was part of the team that earned NPR a 2000 George Foster Peabody Award for the All Things Considered series "Lost & Found Sound."
A native of Monroe, Michigan, Gonyea is an honors graduate of Michigan State University.
-
In Venezuela rescue crews now stop almost everything and ask for silence so they can hear anyone still alive underneath the rubble. NPR's Eyder Peralta reports from the port city of La Guaira.
-
Congress passed the most comprehensive housing bill in decades. Housing expert Vincent Reina of the University of Pennsylvania talks about the effort to make housing more affordable.
-
From Saving Private Ryan to Apocalypse Now military movies have shaped how Americans think about war. NPR's Tom Bowman and Quil Lawrence talk about how Hollywood's view of the military has changed over time.
-
In Michigan Public's new podcast Beyond the Shore, host Rebecca Williams uncovers the shipwrecks, remarkable wildlife and hidden ecosystems beneath America's Great Lakes.
-
The Gordie Howe bridge spans the most important border crossing between the U.S. and Canada. President Donald Trump has said he doesn't want it open yet. -
The search for survivors is entering a critical stage in Venezuela. NPR'S Eyder Peralta reports from La Guaira where rescue crews are still hoping to find people alive.
-
The Supreme Court cleared the way for the Trump administration to end TPS protections for hundreds of thousands of people. Rep. Ayanna Presley talks about what it will mean for Haitian families.
-
Demonstrators gathered in cities across the U.S. today say they're offering a different vision for America ahead of its 250th birthday than the Trump administration's Freedom 250 events. NPR's Marissa Lang visited one rally near the White House.
-
The ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran is being tested after new attacks in the Strait of Hormuz. Mideast expert Paul Salem explains what's happened and whether the deal can still hold.
-
Covering an Ebola outbreak means taking extra precautions. In this Reporter's Notebook, NPR's Emmet Livingstone takes us behind the reporting in eastern Congo.
