Her work includes award-winning coverage of the September 11th terror attacks in New York, President Obama’s 2008 campaign and inauguration, the shooting of Trayvon Martin and its aftermath, and the battle over civil rights and Native American activists’ attempts to get the Washington Redskins to change its 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.  

Biography​

​Keyes has also written and produced segments for ABC News shows Good Morning America and World News Tonight. She covered City Hall and politics for WNYC Radio in New York, and spent several years reporting for WCBS Newsradio 880.  

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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, Smithsonian Magazine, and TV One are among her clients. WTOP Radio is a recent client. Keyes left NPR after 11 years with more than 20 journalism awards under her belt. 
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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 filled in for host Michel Martin on NPR’s Tell Me More. She also filed for NPR’s hourly newscasts. 

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 eyewitness reports on the September, 11, 2001 terrorist 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 August, Keyes won a 2014 National Association of Black Journalists Salute to Excellence Award for her coverage of the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington.She won two awards from that organization in 2013, 2012 and 2011. 

​When not in the field, Keyes enjoys singing jazz, painting, listening to opera, or hanging out with her extremely curious cat.

Keyes’ coverage includes hard news and features on a wide variety of subjects, including gun control, race, 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 as 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.”

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​Keyes also 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 and New York.

Keyes graduated from Illinois Wesleyan University with a degree in English and Journalism before getting her start at the City News Bureau of Chicago. After a stint as a DJ at her college station, Keyes got her start in radio news at NPR member station WBEZ in Chicago, IL, in 1988. She is a member of Delta Sigma Theta Inc. and the National Association of Black Journalists.