Debbie Elliott
National Desk Correspondent
After a stint on Capitol Hill, NPR national correspondent Debbie Elliott is back covering the news in her native South. Based in Alabama, Elliott is following the lingering impact of Hurricane Katrina, what the economic downturn means for states and municipalities and whether the federal stimulus package is helping the region.
Elliott continues to cover politics from the South, and is in place to gauge public reaction to Congressional initiatives, watch the 2010 races and follow southern governors who have higher aspirations.
During her recent tenure in Washington, D.C., Elliott covered Congress and was part of NPR's 2008 election team. She co-hosted late election night returns, reported live from the floor of the Democratic National Convention in Denver and broadcast from the grounds of the U.S. Capitol during President Barack Obama's Inauguration.
Elliott is a former host of NPR's All Things Considered on the weekends. In that role she interviewed a variety of luminaries and world leaders, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. She celebrated the 40th Anniversary of "Alice's Restaurant" with Arlo Guthrie, and mixed it up on the rink with the Baltimore's Charm City Roller Girls. She profiled the late historian John Hope Franklin and the children's book author Eric Carle.
Since joining NPR in 1995, Elliott has covered the re-opening of civil-rights-era murder cases, the legal battle over displaying the Ten Commandments in courthouses, the Elian Gonzales custody dispute from Miami and a number of hurricanes, from Andrew to Katrina. She was stationed in Tallahassee, Florida, for election night in 2000, and was one of the first national reporters on the scene for the contentious presidential election contest that followed. She has covered landmark smoker lawsuits, the tobacco settlement with states, the latest trends in youth smoking and tobacco-control policy and regulation. She's been to a Super Bowl, the Summer Olympics and baseball spring training.
Elliott was born in Atlanta, grew up in the Memphis area and is a graduate of the University of Alabama College of Communication. She's the former news director of member station WUAL (now Alabama Public Radio). She lives in south Alabama where she enjoys fishing with her husband and two children.
