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.
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President Bush nominates the head of one of Wall Street's top financial firms to lead the Treasury Department. Henry Paulson Jr. -- chairman of Goldman Sachs -- is slated to replace resigning Secretary John Snow. The White House hopes Paulson will do a better job than Snow selling the president's economic record.
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The ongoing conflict in Iraq dominates a discussion with the press held by President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair at the White House. The leaders held a joint press conference at the White House.
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President Bush meets with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert at the White House to discuss the new leader's plan to withdraw from much of the West Bank. Progress toward a Palestinian state has been clouded by the election of Hamas to run the Palestinian Authority.
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President Bush tells the nation in televised Oval Office speech on illegal immigration that "America can be a lawful society, and a welcoming society." The president plans to send 6,000 troops to help tighten the U.S.-Mexico border. But he also called again for a guest-worker program. -
President Bush proposes adding up to 6,000 National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexican border to curb illegal immigration, as well as creating a temporary or "guest" worker program. The president delivered a speech on immigration in a live address Monday.
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President Bush will speak Monday night on immigration, a topic for debate that returns to the Senate next week. But other issues swirl around the White House, including a report that the National Security Agency has been tracking the phone calls of tens of millions of Americans.
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The sudden resignation of CIA Director Porter Goss comes as changes in the Bush administration have included the resignation of Press Secretary Scott McClellan and a new job for advisor Karl Rove. President Bush said he accepted Goss's resignation with regret.
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President Bush temporarily suspends environmental rules on gasoline that have been blamed for a recent spike in gas prices. The change may make it easier for refiners to meet demand -- and possibly lower prices. -
President Bush stops the purchase of crude oil this summer for the government's emergency reserve, making more available for public consumption. He is also suspending and easing some environmental rules in hope of increasing refining capacity.
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China's President Hu Jintao visits with President Bush. The two presidents discussed a wide range of issues, but made no major announcements. Hu wraps up his trip to the U.S. with a visit to Yale University in Connecticut.
