John Batchelor

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For other persons named John Batchelor, see John Batchelor (disambiguation).

John Calvin Batchelor (born 1948 in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania) is an author and conservative host of The John Batchelor Show radio news magazine.[1] Based at WABC radio in New York for five years from early 2001 to September, 2006; the show was syndicated nationally on the ABC radio network. On October 7, 2007, Batchelor returned to radio with a 7pm - 10 pm Eastern time show for WABC New York and a 7pm - 10pm Pacific time show for KFI Los Angeles.

Batchelor is a 1970 graduate of Princeton University and a 1976 graduate of Union Theological Seminary.

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[edit] Broadcasting

John Batchelor and his original co-host, Paul Alexander, broadcast the Batchelor and Alexander on WABC in New York. On September 8, 2001, John Batchelor and Paul Alexander presented a four-hour WABC show that was devoted to multiple guest interviews on the sinking of the U.S.S. Cole USS Cole bombing [1]. in October 2000 by the major suspect, the Saudi renegade Osama bin Laden and his gang, al Qaeda [2].

Paul Alexander left the show in December 2003 to pursue work as a playwright [2] and biographer.

The John Batchelor Show was syndicated nationally in April 2003. It carried nightly (Mon-Fri) the "Loftus Report" featuring the intelligence commentator John Loftus on current, war-related, open-source intelligence. Aaron Klein, Jerusalem bureau chief for WorldNetDaily, was also a regular and served as a co-host. Other regular contributors included Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive vice president of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations[3]; the New York attorney and taste-maker Ed Hayes; Larry Kudlow of CNBC's Kudlow & Company: Bill Whelan of the Hoover Institution: John Fund, Bret Stephens, Dan Henninger, Rob Pollock and Kim Strassel of the Wall Street Journal; Jim McTague of Barron's Magazine; Chuck Todd then of the Hotline, now NBC Political Director; Fiona Harvey and Martin Wolf of the Financial Times; Jodi Schneider of the Congressional Quarterly; Matt Bai and A. O. Scott of the New York Times; Katrina vanden Heuvel and Steve Cohen of the Nation; Victor Davis Hanson, Henry Miller, and Larry Diamond of the Hoover Institution; Adrian Wooldridge, Robert Guest, and John Parker of the Economist; as well as David Grinspoon[4], resident expert on the planet Mars and outer space, and Robert Zimmerman, award-winning NASA observer. The program daily featured reports from journalists who also filed with the world's most respected press outlets, and the show was reliably a few days ahead of the news cycle.

When John Batchelor occasionally took a break for several evenings, the show was often hosted by Jed Babbin, editor of Human Events in Washington, D.C.; sometimes by the former BBC journalist John Terrett, who now works for al Jazeera; and by Larry Kudlow of CNBC's Kudlow & Company and WABC's Larry Kudlow Show.

Batchelor's show featured multiple guests and shows were preceded by and interspersed with news clips and music. The show focussed on myriad topics, including politics, the war on terror, nuclear proliferation, the U.N., African civil wars, American history, space exploration and even Hollywood scandals. The Jerusalem Post has an audio archive of "Batchelor and Alexander" segments from 2002 and 2003 that deal with Israel and the Middle East. [5]

To report on breaking news, Batchelor and a small staff traveled to Israel, Jordan, Kazakhstan, and Taiwan, landing in Taipei to broadcast for the week leading up to the 2004 elections, when, on the last day of electioneering, both the president and the vice-president were shot and wounded by an unknown assailant.

[edit] Show cancellation and subsequent return

On Monday, August 25, 2006, Batchelor announced on air that his last show on ABC Radio Network would be on Friday, September 1.[6]

WABC's manager, Phil Boyce, wrote in e-mails to listeners that ABC Radio Network simply had discontinued Batchelor's syndication, but Boyce didn't give any hint why that happened.

Batchelor indicated he would seek to return to a regular radio program in late fall of 2006, but had not returned to a full-time position as of September 2007. His first radio appearance since his departure from ABC was as a substitute host for Matt Drudge on July 22, 2007. The show was nearly identical in format to his ABC show, including contributions from Klein and Loftus, among many other guests. He returned to fill in for Drudge on September 2, 2007.[7]

John Batchelor was a guest on the C-SPAN Q&A program on September 23, 2007 and indicated to host Brian Lamb that the chances that he will return to radio are "very good." Batchelor went on to say "Well, I mean, show business, Brian. You’re number one for five years in the toughest market on the planet, you don’t go away. You don’t ever go away. I can’t get away from the fact that I did the show." [8]

John Loftus, a frequent contributor to Batchelor's show, now has his own radio show on the Talkline Communications Network. Batchelor is also a co-host on Loftus' radio show. Batchelor's first appearance on the Loftus Report was met with great enthusiasm.

Batchelor returned on WABC as the host of a weekly version of the previous show on October 7, 2007, from 7-10 p.m. Eastern Time. He then proceeds to host a second show as a guest host on KFI in Los Angeles, filling the vacancy caused by the departure of Matt Drudge, in the next three hours from 7-10 p.m. Pacific Time. His first program featured an interview with Nick Grace of ClandestineRadio.com that broke the name of al Qaeda's extranet, Obelisk, and the news that the extranet's security tightened following a press leak in September 2007.[9]

[edit] Personal

Batchelor was born in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, in 1948, and was raised primarily in Lower Merion Township of Montgomery County, in Pennsylvania's 13th congressional district. His mother and father both served in the United States Army during World War II, and his father also served in the Korean War.

Batchelor is the eldest of five brothers, and is married to the Reverend Doctor Bonnie Ann Rosborough, who is pastor of the Briarcliff Congregational church. He has two children, of whom one is in high school and one is a recent graduate.

[edit] Work

Writing as John Calvin Batchelor

  • The Further Adventures of Halley's Comet, a novel (1980)
  • The Birth of the People's Republic of Antarctica, a novel (1983)
  • American Falls (1985)
  • Peter Nevsky and the True Story of the Russian Moon Landing, a novel (1993)
  • Father's Day, a novel (1994)
  • "Ain't You Glad You Joined the Republicans?": A Short History of the GOP (1996)

Writing as Tommy "Tip" Paine

  • Gordon Liddy Is My Muse: A Novel (1990)
  • Walking the Cat: A Novel (1991)

This list is inaccurate and incomplete.

[edit] References

  1. ^ O'Connor, Anahad (February 19, 2006). "He Takes the Shout Out of Talk Radio". The New York Times: p. 14WC.1. 

[edit] External links