Melanie Morgan
“At a time when other newspapers, radio and TV stations are cutting back resources, only the Times is doubling down and investing in more, not less journalism. I’m packing my bags and leaving California for Washington energized over my good fortune to be part of this ground-breaking effort. I look forward to bringing over 30 years of broadcast experience to this new investigative show, and the chance to work with Talk Radio Network and Mark Masters is too good an opportunity to pass up,” Melanie Morgan says.
Veteran broadcast journalist, Melanie Morgan, will join the team at The Washington Times to inform and excite their audiences on up-to-the-minute breaking news, and in depth investigations, in a style and format never before experienced in a long-form radio program. Morgan has spent 33 years working for ABC TV and Radio, assigned to cover international hotspots, for which she has earned a reputation as a fearless journalist who faced many challenges, often in dangerous war time situations.
Morgan was first awarded with national recognition in 1979 with an “Omni Excellence in Broadcasting” award, as a young reporter who wrote, produced and voiced a special hour documentary “Brown V. Topeka Board of Education” for KFIX Radio in her hometown of Kansas City, Missouri.
After moving to San Francisco, the 24 year old radio anchorwoman was sent to Beirut in 1983 after Islamic terrorists drove a truck bomb through the gates of the American compound sheltering over 250 young Marines. Morgan won the Associated Press award for Best Live Reporting from Beirut, The Peninsula Press Club award and others for the live broadcasts and exclusive story of PLO leader Yasser Arafat’s ejection from Lebanon by the country’s leading Mullah’s.
For nearly 15 years, Morgan hosted a daily four-hour morning radio program on ABC’s flagship station KSFO, San Francisco, the #1 AM radio market in the country (4th largest rated market overall).
In 1985, Morgan won awards for her coverage of the Mexico City earthquake that registered 8.1, killing 10,000 people. Morgan was the very first reporter to broadcast live the devastation and destruction in Mexico after convincing a Saudi Prince to take her up in his private jet for a ship-to-shore hook-up with San Francisco tower, which was re-broadcast on ABC Radio Network, and played live on ABC Television network.
In 1987, Morgan was sent to Europe to cover the return of TWA flight 847 that was hijacked by Hezbollah radicals who murdered Navy diver Robert Stetham. Melanie was on the tarmac when the plane was returned to West Germany, and the remaining hostages released.
In 1988, ABC radio sent Melanie to Beijing, China to cover the student uprising for Democracy, where over 2,000 people died in Tiananmen Square. She was assigned to ABC TV in addition to her radio responsibilities, even smuggling videotape and equipment to record the dramatic events as they unfolded over a seven week period of time. Morgan won the RTNDA and Peninsula Press club award for her reporting.
In 2006, Melanie was awarded the highest honor from the Associated Press with the Mark Twain award for Best Special Program “Voices of Soldiers” while in combat zones in Iraq, producing and reporting live broadcasts of soldiers with stories to tell, unfiltered and unedited to the American public.
Morgan is also a frequent on-air contributor on the Fox News Channel.
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John McCaslin
John McCaslin was news director and anchor for Bee Broadcasting, Inc., based in Kalispell/Whitefish, Mont., where for two years he co-hosted the top-rated morning-drive radio show for KJJR-AM and KBBZ-FM. He began his radio career at KOFI Radio as news director and morning-drive co-host. During that time he spent four years as a UPI correspondent covering the Pacific Northwest, and he also contributed stories for NBC, ABC and the Mutual radio networks.
He has appeared on virtually every major television and radio network — from MSNBC’s “Hardball” with Chris Matthews to National Public Radio’s “Weekend Edition Sunday,” even VH1 — offering insights in the nation’s capital and its ever-changing cast of political characters. He’s been a regular substitute host for Rush Limbaugh on the EIB Network, Sam Donaldson on ABC Radio, Mary Matalin on CBS Radio, and Michael Reagan and Oliver North over Radio America. He has also anchored a weekly news segment on ABC-7 News in Washington.
His news and travel assignments have taken him around the world, filing stories from Asia, the Middle East, Europe, Africa, South and Central America. For two years he covered and wrote about the war in Nicaragua. His life and work have been featured in numerous publications, including Reader’s Digest, the Washington Post, Editor & Publisher, Washingtonian, Capitol File, Washington Life, and numerous travel magazines.
He has lectured at the FBI, National Security Agency, the Corcoran, Ronald Reagan Library, Heritage Foundation, and throughout the United States through the Nashville Speakers Bureau. He is recipient of numerous awards, including the National Society of Newspaper Columnists Items Award, Blinded American Veterans Foundation Congressional Award, and is recipient of the 2006 Hodding Carter Outstanding Journalism Award.
A former Metropolitan Editor for the Washington Times, McCaslin directed 45 editors/reporters in their daily coverage of the nation’s capital. At the request of the Associated Press, he developed and launched a paid partnership between the nation’s leading news wire agency and his reporters.
Previously, as assistant National Editor, he co-managed daily coverage of the White House, Congress and Pentagon.
He began his newspaper career with The Times as a member of the White House press corps, covering Ronald Reagan and his 1984 reelection.
Best known for penning the “Inside the Beltway” column for The Washington Times (and previously the Los Angeles Times Syndicate and Tribune Media Services), McCaslin’s topics and readers are one and the same, and include U.S. presidents and their Cabinets, senators and congressmen, federal bureaucrats and ordinary Americans. Every day he treats readers to a unique cornucopia of anecdotes culled from Washington’s countless corridors of power.
Broadcaster, author, public speaker and columnist are among the hats worn by John McCaslin during his 25 years of covering the White House and Congress and all federal agencies in between
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