Garland Robinette

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Garland Robinette (born in Boutte, Louisiana ca. 1943) is a journalist in the New Orleans area. He currently is host of "The Think Tank" on New Orleans radio station WWL (AM).

Robinette was a news anchor and investigative reporter on New Orleans TV station WWL-TV Channel 4 for twenty years (1970 until August 8, 1990). After leaving the TV station, Robinette served as head of public relations for Freeport McMoran in New Orleans before starting his own firm. He returned to the media in 2005 on WWL (AM) as a fill-in for David Tyree, a popular host stricken with cancer. The position became permanent when Tyree succumbed several weeks after Hurricane Katrina.

[edit] Nagin interview

Robinette came to national attention with Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The WWL radio station was for a time the only one able to continue to broadcast during the disaster; for a time Robinette was broadcasting from a hastily thrown together studio in a closet after the building's windows blew out. In the days between the hurricane and when outside help arrived, his broadcasts were an important information source for those able to hear radio broadcasts in Greater New Orleans. On September 2, 2005, Robinette conducted the famous interview with Mayor Ray Nagin where the mayor urged those in the Federal Government who had been promising but not delivering aid to "get off your asses".

Robinette is one of the interview subjects in When the Levees Broke, the 2006 Spike Lee documentary about the effect of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans. He also appears alongside Angela Hill, his former wife, in Hexing A Hurricane, a documentary about the first six months in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

[edit] Trivia

Robinette, a native of the Louisiana bayou country, is a veteran of the Vietnam War.

In 1988, Robinette was caught attempting to enter the Republican National Convention, which was held in the Louisiana Superdome, with a concealed firearm in his briefcase.

Robinette is also an artist -- known particularly for his portraits. He studied at the New Orleans Academy of Fine Arts.

On his radio show on 25 October, 2006, Robinette advocated the use of nuclear weapons in an attempt to end the Iraq war.

On his radio show on 28 May, 2008, Robinette vigorously defended his position that, just like a janitor, the President of the United States, needs no experience and can rely on experts and training in this position.

Angela Hill still works as an anchor at WWL-TV; when they were husband and wife, Robinette and Hill were paired, just as Jim Lampley and Bree Walker were at KCBS-TV in Los Angeles under similar circumstances.