Clay Masters
Clay Masters is Iowa Public Radio’s Morning Editionhost and lead political reporter. He was part of a team of member station political reporters who covered the 2016 presidential race for NPR. He also covers environmental issues.
Clay joined the Iowa Public Radio newsroom as a statehouse correspondent in 2012 and started hosting Morning Edition in 2014. Clay is an award-winning multi-media journalist whose radio stories have been heard on various NPR and American Public Media programs.
He was one of the founding reporters of Harvest Public Media, the regional journalism consortium covering agriculture and food production in the Midwest. He was based in Lincoln, Nebraska where he worked for Nebraska’s statewide public radio and television network.
He’s also an occasional music contributor to NPR’s arts desk.
Clay’s favorite NPR program is All Things Considered.
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Candidates' waning interest in the corn fuel shows that Iowa's role in shaping policy debates may be declining. -
The hyperfocus on Iowa as the first presidential nominating contest has meant more money — and sometimes leaving allegiances behind — for consultants, who can make up to $10,000 a month. -
The way one fifth of Iowa's residents get health care is about to change. The governor is putting Medicaid in the hands of private insurance companies, and 11 firms are vying for that business. -
Iowa's freshman Sen. Joni Ernst hosted a herd of potential Republican presidential candidates for her first-ever Roast and Ride event, asserting herself as a force in presidential politics. -
The state's largest water utility is suing county boards for polluting rivers the city uses for drinking water.
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Obamacare provided billions in seed money to help establish insurance companies called co-ops. One of the biggest has now gone under, and its state overseer is telling clients to switch carriers.
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National Park Service officials approved $3 million in illegal construction projects over a decade that damaged one of the nation's most sacred Indian burial sites in northeast Iowa. -
Business is booming in North Dakota's Bakken Shale oilfields. Companies are working on pipeline proposals. One calls for a pipeline to be built from Iowa's northwest corner to its southeast corner.
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Guitarist and songwriter David Dondero has been touring the world and putting out records for nearly two decades. He's a favorite among critics and other musicians, but he's barely making a living — and he seems fine with that.
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Iowa initially chose not to expand Medicaid to thousands of beneficiaries under the Affordable Care Act. But it's come up with a plan that uses federal money to pay for expansion, while writing its own rules. Beneficiaries will have to pay a small premium, for instance.