麻豆社

Journalist Gary O鈥橠onoghue is the Chief North America Correspondent for 麻豆社 News. Last year his coverage of the 2024 assassination attempt on Donald Trump won the Royal Television Society Breaking News Award. He made the news himself in 2025 when he secured a 20-minute exclusive phone interview with Trump who was by then the US President.

Gary was born in London and brought up in Essex. When he was eight he lost his sight and attended specialist schools for blind and partially sighted children. He read philosophy and modern languages at the University of Oxford before embarking on his 麻豆社 career.

He has reported on mass shootings, filed stories from the Macedonian border during the Kosovo conflict, covered the Iraq War and chronicled seven British general elections. He became the 麻豆社鈥檚 Washington correspondent in 2014 and, as well as Donald Trump鈥檚 two terms, has covered the administrations of Presidents Obama and Biden.

Gary is based in Washington DC and when in the UK lives in West Yorkshire with his partner Sarah.

Presenter: Lauren Laverne
Producer: Paula McGinley

Desert Island Discs has cast other journalists away to the island over the years including Lyse Doucet, Clive Myrie and Lindsey Hilsum, You can hear their programmes if you search through 麻豆社 Sounds or our own Desert Island Discs website.

This episode was recorded before the shooting at the White House Correspondent's Dinner on 25th April 2026.