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 and Chinese President Hu Jintao hold talks on nuclear proliferation and energy policy as they work for closer U.S.-China ties. Outside the White House, activists protested human rights abuses by Hu's government. At east one managed to get inside to disrupt the day's ceremony.
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The man who has spoken for President Bush for nearly three years is leaving the pressroom podium, as Scott McClellan announces his resignation as White House press secretary. In another shift, President Bush's key strategic advisor, Karl Rove, will shed one of his administration jobs.
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White House press secretary Scott McClellan says he is resigning, continuing a shake-up in President Bush's administration. McClellan was named press secretary in June 2003, not long after the United States invaded Iraq.
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President Bush selects Rob Portman to be his new budget director. Portman takes the job vacated by the president's new chief of staff, Josh Bolten. Portman's current post of trade representative will go to his deputy, Susan Schwab. Bolten has suggested that more administration changes may come.
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President Bush holds a news conference during which he defends the war, acknowledges that U.S. troops will likely be in Iraq throughout his presidency, and, in a question about Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold's motion to censure him, practically dares Democrats to run on the wiretap issue in 2006.
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On the third anniversary of the start of the war in Iraq, President Bush speaks in Ohio about the progress of the conflict and the challenges ahead. He says Americans need to look beyond the violence in Iraq for signs of progress.
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The Bush administration unveils an updated version of its National Security Strategy, a document originally issued in 2002 to lay out the White House vision for the war on terrorism. The new version restates the doctrine of pre-emptive war and says Iran may pose an increased threat to the United States.
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President Bush returns from a three-nation tour of South Asia. The trip produced a nuclear deal with India and prompted violent anti-American protests. At a news conference in Islamabad, the president called Pakistan's President Pervez Musahareff a man of courage and vision. -
President Bush's five-day tour of South Asia is coming to an end. In Pakistan, he conferred with President Pervez Musharraf on the war against terrorism amid anti-U.S. protests from Muslim groups. -
Can India become a key export market instead of a place where U.S. companies send jobs? On a visit to the Indian School of Business in the southern city of Hyderabad, President Bush highlights trade opportunities with a nation of more than 1 billion people.
