NPR names Horsley its chief economics correspondent

NPR business editor Pallavi Gogoi sent out the following announcement on Thursday:

I’m delighted to announce that White House Correspondent Scott Horsley is joining the Business Desk as NPR’s Chief Economics Correspondent. 

Scott is poised to take on this position at a time when the global economy has entered an era of dramatic and profound change, much of it driven by policies emanating from America at an unforeseen pace. Long existing global trade deals are being upended and new tariffs are being imposed. As all of this courses through the global economy, it stands to upend the lives of workers, change the destinies of companies and also the direction of economies across the world.

And Scott will undoubtedly take NPR’s coverage to new heights.

It is also a homecoming of sorts for Scott.

Here’s more about him:

Before joining the Washington/Politics desk, Scott had already done a couple of stints on the Business Desk between 2001 and 2007.

But let’s start at the very beginning. Scott started his NPR career as an overnight tape-cutter for Morning Edition in 1987, when NPR was still located on M Street. During those days, Scott also worked the lunch rush at the McDonalds up the street, mostly making quarter-pounders. The McDonalds is still there, and Scott likes to think his easy demeanor sprinkled with jokes and also his quarter-pounder flipping skills helped lay the groundwork for Joan Kroc’s $200 million+ bequest to NPR a decade and a half later.

In his career as a reporter, Scott has covered shale oil, soybean oil, and a fair amount of snake oil. Plus he has reported on “Caucus! The Musical.”  He once ate an orange in the shower with Sam Sanders and Geoff Brumfiel for “All Things Considered.” (It was Graham Smith’s idea, he says. But, don’t ask me about it.)

Along with Don Gonyea, Brian Naylor, and Arnie Seipel, Scott helped found NPR’s RAGBRAI team, “No Pie Refused,” which is preparing for its seventh two-wheeled journey across Iowa this summer. Last year, NPR finally beat the Des Moines Register’s team in a pie-eating contest with the help of his new business-desk colleague Camila Domonoske.

When I asked him to describe RAGBRAI, Scott said it’s the only 400-mile bike ride where you gain weight. Those pies!

Plus there is the bus! Scott is proud part-owner of the NPR team bus, a former Pennsylvania transit vehicle that’s now retrofitted with a horn that plays the All Things Considered theme.

Scott has an MBA from San Diego State University and a BA from Harvard University. He lives in DC with his dog, Rosie.

Scott will continue covering the White House for a few more weeks as we work out the transition.

Washington Desk’s top boss Beth Donovan had this to say:

“Working with Scott has been one of the great joys of my career. From those first pieces I edited from that station kid back in 1996 to John Kerry’s campaign bus in 2004, McCain’s bus in 2008 and the Obama and now Trump White House, Scott taught me something and made me laugh in every edit. We will miss him terribly on the Washington Desk and hope Pallavi has a liberal hand with Scott’s sly puns.”

Scott starts with the Business Desk on March 18.

We can hardly wait!