Dart Society

2444 Flamingo Place, Unit 2A · Miami Beach, FL 33140 · (305) 926-8458 · dangrech@gmail.com

Dan Grech

Marketplace Americas Desk, Miami

Dan Grech is Marketplace’s first Americas Desk reporter, covering Latin American business and the Hispanic economy in the United States from WLRN Studios in downtown Miami.

He’s also the co-creator, co-host, co-senior producer of Under the Sun, a brand new public radio show airing on 91.3 FM WLRN, South Florida’s NPR affiliate. The weekend news magazine tells the stories of South Florida and reflects the diversity of perspectives, passions and accents of the region. You can hear the show at wlrnunderthesun.org.

Grech will be teaching a course in the fall of 2009 at Princeton University called “The New Audio Age of Journalism.” He has taught writing, interviewing and radio production at Columbia University School of Journalism, Florida International University and the Florida Center for the Literary Arts. He has spoken at dozens of conferences and been a guest at universities around the country.

Grech is a convert from print journalism. He started freelancing for various publications while a student at Princeton University, after he realized he preferred reporting to washing dishes as a way to earn textbook money. He interned at The Boston Globe and The Washington Post before landing a gig at the Miami Herald in 2000. In his first month on the job, he helped report on the return of Elián González to Cuba, coverage that later was awarded a Pulitzer Prize. Talk about timing. He also contributed to a staff-written book on the contested 2000 presidential election.

In 2003, Grech traveled to Buenos Aires, Argentina, on a Fulbright fellowship and an Inter American Press Association scholarship. There he earned a Masters degree in Spanish-language journalism and covered Argentina for The Miami Herald.

All along, Grech was an avid public radio listener. Before leaving for Argentina, he bought a minidisk recorder and a microphone and experimented with it in his free time. His first piece was on tango. It was an inauspicious start: his editor said his voicing sounded like he was covering a funeral.

Things have looked up since Grech joined Marketplace in 2004. He has traveled to half a dozen countries, filed on twenty presidential elections and led Marketplace’s coverage of Hurricane Katrina.

When Grech isn’t working in radio, he performs in an improv comedy troupe (Chasing Tales) and is the founding vice chair of the Friends of New World Symphony in Miami.