National Public Radio political correspondent and Michigan State University alumnus Don Gonyea has been honored with WKAR’s first Media Master Award.
The award was created to acknowledge superior performance in the industry, said WKAR general manager Gary Reid.
“As we thought about those who personified this award, Don Gonyea’s name was at the top of the list,” Reid said.
Gonyea’s voice is familiar to public radio listeners as he is frequently heard highlighting Washington politics for NPR. He has covered the George W. Bush presidency, the Obama campaign and has reported stories from such sites as Moscow, Beijing, Hanoi, Seoul and Islamabad, among many others.
He is a recipient of numerous national and state awards, including the George Foster Peabody Award which he earned as part of the team that created the “All Things Considered” series “Lost and Found Sound.”
Gonyea joined NPR in 1986, reporting from Detroit with stories that included labor unions, Dr. Jack Kevorkian and the 1999 closing of Tiger Stadium.
He often substitutes as anchor for NPR’s “Morning Edition” and “Weekend Edition” programs, appears on such programs as the “PBS NewsHour” and periodically teaches journalism courses.
Gonyea is a 1980 graduate of MSU, where he studied telecommunication and advertising. In the early 1980s he worked with WKAR, covering politics for the Michigan Public Radio Network and appearing on “Off the Record.”
The WKAR Media Master Award will be presented each spring to honor an individual who exemplifies the best in the media industry, inspiring colleagues and aspiring journalists and other media experts to pursue excellence in their professions.
WKAR is part of MSU’s College of Communication Arts and Sciences and includes WKAR-TV, WKAR Radio, WKAR.org, WKAR Radio Reading Service and WKAR Ready to Learn Service.
WKAR is supported in large part by contributions from viewers and listeners with additional support from Michigan State University and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.