Tamara Keith
Senior White House Correspondent
Tamara Keith has been a White House correspondent for NPR since 2014 and co-hosts the NPR Politics Podcast, the top political news podcast in America. In that time, she has chronicled the final years of the Obama administration, covered Hillary Clinton's failed bid for president from start to finish and threw herself into documenting the Trump administration, from policy made by tweet to the president's COVID diagnosis and January 6th. In the final year of the Trump administration and the first year of the Biden administration, she focused her reporting on the White House response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Her reporting often highlights small observations that tell a larger story about the president and the changing presidency.
In 2018, Keith was elected to serve on the board of the White House Correspondents' Association, then served as its president in 2022/23 during a momentous term that included a complete overhaul of the press workspace at the White House. In that role she led the press corps in its interactions with the White House, advocated for press conferences and coordinated travel. She also worked to demystify the White House beat for the public, in an effort to help restore trust in the press, an essential pillar of American democracy.
Previously Keith covered congress for NPR with an emphasis on House Republicans, the budget, taxes and the fiscal fights that dominated at the time.
Keith joined NPR in 2009 as a Business Reporter. In that role, she reported on topics spanning the business world, from covering the debt downgrade and debt ceiling crisis to the latest in policy debates, legal issues and technology trends. In early 2010, she was on the ground in Haiti covering the aftermath of the country's disastrous earthquake, and later she covered the oil spill in the Gulf. In 2011, Keith conceived of and reported "The Road Back To Work," a year-long series featuring the audio diaries of six people in St. Louis who began the year unemployed and searching for work.
Keith has deep roots in public radio and got her start in news by writing and voicing essays for NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday as a teenager. While in college, she launched her career at NPR Member station KQED's California Report, where she covered agriculture, the environment, economic issues and state politics. She covered the 2004 presidential election for NPR Member station WOSU in Columbus, Ohio, and opened the state capital bureau for NPR Member station KPCC to cover then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
In 2001, Keith began working on B-Side Radio, an hour-long public radio show and podcast that she co-founded, produced, hosted, edited and distributed for nine years, back before podcasts were cool. She is a regular contributor to PBS NewsHour, appearing each week as part of its Politics Monday segment.
Keith earned a bachelor's degree in philosophy from the University of California, Berkeley, and a master's degree at the UCB Graduate School of Journalism. Keith is also a member of the Bad News Babes, a media softball team that once a year competes against female members of Congress in the Congressional Women's Softball game. She serves on advisory boards for the University of California Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement and the UC Berkeley J-School.
