Meg Kinnard (SFS '02) is a national politics reporter, currently in her 20th year with The Associated Press. Most recently, she covered the 2024 presidential campaign with a focus on the GOP presidential primary. She traveled coast-to-coast covering the candidates, reporting from the battleground states and other key areas, and focusing on how campaigns and political groups interact in the digital space, as well as national breaking news. 

During the 2024 cycle, she anchored AP's first-ever general election livestream coverage, which broke records for the wire service's livestream coverage, with more than 13 million views, and was the first AP reporter to appear on the wire service's TikTok account.

She began her career with the AP in 2005, moving from Washington, D.C. to South Carolina, where she's had the unique opportunity to report on and interview nearly every presidential candidate for the past two decades. As a wire reporter, she's also covered everything from college football to hurricanes and legal affairs, including the 2015 massacre at Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston.

Before joining AP, Kinnard previously covered Congress and campaign advertising for National Journal in D.C. But her long career with journalism started right here on the Hilltop, as a reporter for The Georgetown Independent and, during her senior year, an internship with The Washington Post through Prof. Barbara Feinman's then-nascent journalism program. 

A native of Memphis, Tennessee, she grew up in a political family and received a BSFS in International Politics with a concentration in International Security Studies, from the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. In 2021, she also earned an MA in Digital Communication from the Hussman School of Journalism and Media at UNC-Chapel Hill, where she is also currently pursuing a master's certificate in digital strategic communication. 

She lives in South Carolina with her husband and their three children, three cats, a dog and a horse.

Meg's discussion group is titled Judging Journalism: Exploring Trustworthiness in Media.