Yamiche Alcindor


Yamiche Léone Alcindor is an American journalist who is the White House correspondent for the PBS NewsHour and a political contributor to NBC News and MSNBC. In the past, she has worked as a reporter for USA Today and The New York Times. Alcindor writes mainly about politics and social issues.

Early life and education

Alcindor was born in Miami, Florida, to Haitian-born parents. When she was in high school, she was an intern at the Westside Gazette, a local African-American newspaper, and the Miami Herald. She earned a bachelor's degree in English and government with a minor in African-American studies at Georgetown University in 2009. While studying, she became a member of the predominantly African-American sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha, and she interned at The Seattle Times, the Miami Herald again, the Botswanan newspaper Mmegi, and The Washington Post. She aspired to become a civil rights journalist, and was inspired by African-American journalist Gwen Ifill and contemporary newspaper reporting surrounding Emmett Till. In 2015, Alcindor received a master's degree in "broadcast news and documentary filmmaking" at New York University.

Career

Alcindor's first full-time job was as a reporter of Newsday, a newspaper based in Melville, New York. She was employed there for two years covering, among other things, the 2010 Haiti earthquake, until she became a multimedia reporter for USA Today based in New York City in December 2011 to cover national breaking news. For the newspaper, Alcindor reported on, among other things, the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, the shooting of Trayvon Martin, the Ferguson unrest, and the Baltimore protests. She was named "Emerging Journalist of the Year" by the National Association of Black Journalists in 2013. That same year, Alcindor began to contribute to NBC News and MSNBC as a guest. Programs she has appeared on include Morning Joe, The Rachel Maddow Show, PoliticsNation with Al Sharpton, Hardball with Chris Matthews, and Meet the Press.
She left USA Today to work for The New York Times as a national political reporter in November 2015. At The New York Times, Alcindor covered the presidential campaigns of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. She also produced a documentary called The Trouble with Innocence about a man who was wrongly convicted of murder. Alcindor also appeared in the 2018 television series "The Fourth Estate" about Times staff covering the first 100 days of the Trump presidency.
In 2016, she was nominated for a Shorty Award in the Journalist category. The next year, Alcindor won an award in a tribute to journalist Gwen Ifill, who had died in November 2016, at the Syracuse University's Toner Prize ceremony. Alcindor was number 13 on the 2017 edition of "The Root 100", an annual list by magazine The Root of the most influential African Americans between the ages of 25 and 45. In January 2018, she was named White House correspondent of the PBS NewsHour, replacing John Yang, who was named the NewsHour's national correspondent. In this position Alcindor covers the Trump presidency. During the 2020 presidential election season, she was one of the moderators of the sixth Democratic debate. Erik Wemple of The Washington Post reported President Donald Trump has repeatedly insulted Alcindor at White House press conferences.

Personal life

Alcindor is Haitian-American and is fluent in Haitian Creole. She is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists. In 2018, she married reporter Nathaniel Cline.