Allison Keyes is an award-winning journalist with more than 20 years of experience in print, radio and television. She is now a freelance correspondent/host and media consultant. CBS Radio News, WTOP Radio,TheRoot.com and Smithsonian Magazine are among her clients. Keyes left NPR after 11 years with more than 20 journalism awards under her belt.
Keyes joined NPR as a substitute host and reporter for “The Tavis Smiley Show” in 2002. She then reported for “News and Notes,” before joining NPR’s National Desk in 2005. Her reports were heard on “Morning Edition,” “All Things Considered” and “Weekend Edition Sunday,” among other shows. Keyes also filed in for host Michel Martin on NPR’s “Tell Me More,” and filed for NPR’s hourly newscasts.
Keyes’ coverage includes hard news and features on a wide variety of subjects, including gun control, race, culture and the arts, domestic policy and social issues.
“I’ve done everything from interviewing actor James Earl Jones and President Obama, to covering the case of Army biologist Bruce Ivins, whom the government labeled a suspect in the 2001 anthrax attacks,” Keyes says. “I covered the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, and the deadly explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia.”
Her work includes award-winning eyewitness coverage of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks in New York, President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign and inauguration, the shooting of Trayvon Martin and its aftermath, and the battle over Native American activists’ attempts to get the Washington Redskins to change the team name. As guest host for “Tell Me More,” Keyes anchored segments on everything from human trafficking to riots in the United Kingdom to the continuing aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Keyes has won more than 20 journalism awards, including the Newswomen’s Club of New York 2002 Front Page Award for Breaking News for her reports on the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in New York. That coverage also earned her, along with WCBS Newsradio staff, the New York State Associated Press Broadcast Award for Breaking News and Continuing Coverage. In 2014, Keyes won a National Association of Black Journalists Salute to Excellence Award for her coverage of the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. She also was honored by NABJ for her coverage of the death of former Washington D.C. Mayor Marion Barry. She won two awards from that organization in 2011, 2012 and 2013.
Keyes has extensive experience in television, at the cable, local and network level. She co-authored two African American history books in addition to the African American Heritage Perpetual Calendar. Keyes has reported for Black Enterprise Magazine, and has written profiles for various magazines and Internet news outlets in Chicago, New York and Washington, D.C. Keyes is a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc.
