David Greene
David Greene is an award-winning journalist and New York Times best-selling author. He is a host of NPR's Morning Edition, the most listened-to radio news program in the United States, and also of NPR's popular morning news podcast, Up First.
Prior to taking on his current role in 2012, Greene was an NPR foreign correspondent based in Moscow covering the region from Ukraine and the Baltics east to Siberia. During that time he brought listeners stories as wide-ranging as Chernobyl 25 years later and Beatles-singing Russian Babushkas. He wrote the best-selling book Midnight in Siberia, capturing Russian life on a journey across the Trans-Siberian Railway.
Greene later won an Edward R. Murrow Award for his interview with two young men badly beaten by authorities in the Russian republic of Chechnya as part of a campaign to target gay men. Greene also spent a month in Libya reporting riveting stories in the most difficult of circumstances as NATO bombs fell on Tripoli. He was honored with the 2011 Daniel Schorr Journalism Prize from WBUR and Boston University for that coverage of the Arab Spring.
Greene's voice became familiar to NPR listeners from his four years covering the White House. To report on former President George W. Bush's second term, he spent hours in NPR's spacious booth in the basement of the West Wing (it's about the size of your average broom closet). He also spent time trekking across five continents, reporting on White House visits to places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Mongolia, Rwanda, Uruguay – and, of course, Crawford, Texas.
During the days following Hurricane Katrina, Greene was aboard Air Force One when President Bush flew low over the Gulf Coast and caught his first glimpse of the storm's destruction. On the ground in New Orleans, Greene brought listeners a moving interview with the late Ethel Williams, a then-74-year-old flood victim who got an unexpected visit from the president.
Greene was an integral part of NPR's coverage of the historic 2008 election, reporting on Hillary Clinton's campaign from start to finish, and also focusing on how racial attitudes were playing into voters' decisions. The White House Correspondents' Association took special note of Greene's report on a speech by then-candidate Barack Obama addressing the nation's racial divide. Greene was given the Association's 2008 Merriman Smith Award for deadline coverage of the presidency.
After President Obama took office, Greene kept one eye trained on the White House and the other eye on the road. He spent three months driving across America – with a recorder, camera, and lots of caffeine – to learn how the recession was touching Americans during President Obama's first 100 days in office. The series was called "100 Days: On the Road in Troubled Times."
Before joining NPR in 2005, Greene spent nearly seven years as a newspaper reporter for the Baltimore Sun. He covered the White House during the Bush administration's first term and wrote about an array of other topics for the paper, including why Oklahomans love the sport of cockfighting, why two Amish men in Pennsylvania were caught trafficking methamphetamine, and how one woman brought Christmas back to a small town in Maryland.
Before graduating magna cum laude from Harvard in 1998 with a degree in government, Greene worked as the senior editor on the Harvard Crimson. In 2004, he was named co-volunteer of the year for Coaching for College, a Washington, DC, program offering tutoring to inner-city youth. He lives in Los Angeles and Washington, DC, with his wife, Rose Previte, a restauranteur.
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Journalists based in Colombia, South Africa and Indonesia talk about how the Black Lives Matter movement inspired activists abroad this year.
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In the contest over COVID-19 relief, the ball is in the GOP's court. Investigators search for a motive behind the Nashville bombing. Plus, Georgia's two crucial Senate runoffs are a week away.
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President Trump signs into law the coronavirus relief and spending package. Nashville investigators identify the Christmas Day bomber. Plus, the EU launches its first round of COVID-19 vaccinations.
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The COVID-19 relief bill remains unsigned by the president. British and EU parliaments must approve Thursday's Brexit deal. Plus, Bethlehem, biblical birthplace of Jesus, suffers during the pandemic.
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President Trump grants another round of pardons. Congress will try to override the president's veto of the defense bill. Brexit negotiators have been working overtime to reach a trade deal by Dec. 31.
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The drugmakers will add an additional 100 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to the number that they are already supplying the government. They expect to deliver all the doses by July 31.
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The leader of Low Cut Connie, tasked with writing a pandemic-era holiday song, thought back to a journal entry he wrote nearly 20 years ago, while working as a perfume spritzer at a local mall.
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President Trump demands changes to pandemic relief bill, and he pardoned 15 people and commuted sentences of five others. France reopens border with Britain after new COVID-19 strain is detected.
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Congress ends months-long stalemate and passes $900 billion coronavirus relief bill. The U.K.'s COVID-19 variant has 17 mutations. Plus, how should the U.S. respond to the massive computer hack?
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The holidays will be unconventional, and Jack Bishop of America's Test Kitchen offers two dishes that follow that theme: a decadent seafood linguine and hazelnut–browned butter sugar cookies.
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Lawmakers reach a deal on a coronavirus relief package. A mutation of COVID-19 is discovered spreading in the U.K. Plus, the latest vaccine news from the U.S.
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The FDA will vote on whether to clear Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use. Two lawsuits question how Facebook got so big. Plus, lawmakers on Capitol Hill debate a COVID-19 relief package.