David Greene
Correspondent, New York
David Greene is a correspondent for NPR News, based in New York. He is currently traveling the country for the series "100 Days: On the Road in Troubled Times," to bring home stories about the U.S. economy and how it touches people's lives in the early days of the Obama administration.
Greene joined NPR in February 2005 as a White House Correspondent, reporting on former President George W. Bush and the policies and people of the White House. He was an integral part of NPR's coverage of the historic 2008 election, covering Hillary Clinton's campaign from start to finish, and also focusing on how racial attitudes were playing into voters' decisions.
In his time keeping tabs on President Bush, Greene traveled everywhere from Baghdad to Biloxi. He flew to Iraq with Bush in June 2006 on a trip that was kept secret until the president was on the ground and zipped by helicopter into the Green Zone. Greene followed the president across South America, Asia and Europe. He traveled with former Vice President Dick Cheney to Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, and saw Mr. Cheney witness an elected Afghan parliament convene for the first time since 1973. Greene also covered former First Lady Laura Bush's 2005 trip to Botswana, South Africa, Tanzania and Rwanda.
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. He went to Louisiana and Mississippi with Bush; he also traveled to New Orleans to bring listeners stories from the region, including a moving interview with the late Ethel Williams, a then-74-year-old flood victim who was visited by the president in April 2006.
In 2006, Greene produced a series chronicling one 2006 Iowa congressional race. He spent a lot of time on the ground in Iowa for that series, including stops at a hotel karaoke bar and on the back of a moving John Deere tractor.
Before joining NPR, Greene spent nearly seven years as a newspaper reporter for the Baltimore Sun. He covered the White House for the Sun during the Bush administration's first term, reporting on the president's response to the Sept. 11 attacks and his management of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. During the summer and fall of 2004, Greene covered the president's re-election campaign.
Before joining the White House press corps, he covered an array of topics: He explored 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. He once set up shop for weeks in Western Maryland to follow a mayoral election, chronicling the ultimately failed bid by a bar owner to lead the railroad town in which he grew up. Greene previously served as an education writer, reporting from the Sun's bureau in Carroll County, Maryland. He joined the paper in 1998 as a researcher in the Washington bureau, contributing to the paper's coverage of President Bill Clinton's impeachment trial.
A native of Lancaster, Pa., Greene spent much of his childhood in Pittsburgh. He remains a rabid Pittsburgh Steelers fan and spends Sunday afternoons dressed in black and gold, waving a Steelers "Terrible Towel" while yelling at a television set. 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 his free time, Greene loves to help in the community, and in 2004 was named co-volunteer of the year for Coaching for College, a Washington, D.C. program offering tutoring to inner-city youth who need extra help in their schoolwork and in life. He also enjoys skiing or sailing, depending on the season. Greene lives in New York City with his wife, Rose.
