Fanning the Flames / Melanie Morgan's swing from liberal to right- wing radio shouter may not have happened overnight, but it's permanent - - and profitable. Photo: JOHN LEE. Image 1 of 4. SEPT 5 - KSFO conservative radio personality Melanie Morgan, photographed in her home in Greenbrae. By JOHN LEE/SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLESEPT 5 - KSFO conservative radio personality Melanie Morgan, photographed in her home in Greenbrae. By JOHN LEE/SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE. Photo: JOHN LEE. Image 2 of 4. KSFO conservative radio personality Melanie Morgan in the doorway of her Marin County home. Photo by John Lee, special to the Chronicle. KSFO conservative radio personality Melanie Morgan in the doorway of her Marin County home. Photo by John Lee, special to the Chronicle. Howard Hesseman (1940-) biography on Film Reference. Wayne Dreyer, High Stakes (also known as High Stakes: The Melanie Morgan Story), Lifetime. Showbiz; Australia; Femail; Health; Science. Image 3 of 4. Morgan at the mike from which she led the charge to recall Gov. Davis and rails against Spare the Air Day in the KSFO studios. Photo by John Lee. Talk Radio, Melanie Morgan. KSFO morning talk host Melanie Morgan. A Story Of Two Families. Morgan at the mike from which she led the charge to recall Gov. Davis and rails against Spare the Air Day in the KSFO studios. Photo by John Lee. Image 4 of 4. The lighter side of Morgan: playing with Rufus, a golden retriever/chow mix from the SFSPCA as Tracy Pore tells listeners that he's up for adoption. Chronicle photo by Carlos Avila Gonzalez. The lighter side of Morgan: playing with Rufus, a golden retriever/chow mix from the SFSPCA as Tracy Pore tells listeners that he's up for adoption. Chronicle photo by Carlos Avila Gonzalez. Fanning the Flames / Melanie Morgan's swing from liberal to right- wing radio shouter may not have happened overnight, but it's permanent - - and profitable. Back to Gallery. In the predawn darkness shortly after 5 a. Melanie Morgan begins her daily conservative talk show by mocking the news that this would be another Spare the Air Day in the Bay Area - - an ozone- heavy summer day when transportation officials ask commuters to avoid driving or other pollution- creating activities. To many Bay Area residents, a Spare the Air request is an apolitical fact of life. Not to Morgan's listeners.
In the vernacular of the . Get out your biggest SUV and drive it a lot. Fire up that leaf blower. Has been for years; sometimes it's been higher. Then again, 9. 0 percent of KSFO's audience lives outside of San Francisco, in the not- as- politically blue, nine- county Bay Area. The ABC/Disney- owned station's audience is well- educated, largely well- heeled, predominantly male, overwhelmingly white - - and starved for conservative chatter. The KSFO listener tunes in for 1. Spanish- language broadcasts. Purchased for a reported $1. Republicans took the House of Representatives, it is estimated to be worth several times that today. The station's influence, particularly on Rodgers and Morgan's show, can be felt over the past decade as they've fanned - - if not ignited - - successful campaigns from the 2. Gov. Gray Davis to the removal of gasoline- additive MTBE to the easing of smog checks. Ronald Reagan after he graduated. Now, his firm provides office space at no charge as a contribution to the efforts of Move America Forward, the nonprofit that Morgan heads. While Rodgers has a half- century of radio experience in markets from Miami to Seattle, the 5. Morgan has become the show's breakout star - - not bad for a relatively new convert to conservatism. To many, she is better known for her TV appearances on the conservative side of the split- screen on cable TV shoutfests than in her own backyard - - which, oddly enough, is in Marin County, a spot scorned on the conservative map as the mecca of hot- tub liberalism and home of John . She also writes a regular online column on the conservative Web site World. Net. Daily. Like when she accompanied her son, C. J., then a seventh- grader, on a field trip a couple of years ago to the Marin mosque where Lindh worshiped. It quickly turned into the field trip from hell when Mom started aggressively questioning the mosque's imam about whether he supported jihad and what they were teaching Lindh. It took a long time for people to forget about it. Her husband, her mother, her late father, her neighbors, and even her son - - at times - - have shaken their heads and shrugged at how the daughter of an ACLU attorney in Missouri became the woman whose nonprofit sells . It was Morgan who led the . And it was on her radio show in 2. Morgan and then- California Republican Party chair Shawn Steel first publicly launched the idea to recall then- Gov. And Morgan criticizes Bush for not selling the war in Iraq more successfully to voters. Two years ago, Morgan co- founded Move America Forward, a Sacramento nonprofit run with the help of Republican political consultant Russo. It raises roughly $1 million annually, largely to air TV commercials on conservative positions that even the White House won't take. Such as insisting that weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq and that the United Nations should move its headquarters out of New York. Their latest ad in production urged less political correctness in airport screening - - and wasn't shy about reinforcing cultural stereotypes. According to a copy of the shot list of the ad reviewed by The Chronicle, while screeners patted down an . While screeners are still occupied with the old lady, the outline says, . Despite Move America Forward's ongoing programs to send coffee, cookies and beef jerky to the troops, Morgan said she has no juice with the administration. The Department of Defense hasn't helped her coordinate her next project: She wants to take . She is working on leading the trip without a DOD escort, instead going through the Kurdish part of Iraq. When it was pointed out to Morgan that the maximum penalty for treason is death, she told The Chronicle: . It is about revealing classified secrets in the time of war. And the media has got to take responsibility for revealing classified information that is putting American lives at risk. But not in the usual way. Keith Olbermann, host of MSNBC's . The New York Times, The New Yorker magazine and political bloggers ripped her as everything from . The liberal watchdog group Media Matters for America lumped Morgan in with conservative commentators Ann Coulter and Glenn Beck, and posted an online petition asking . America deserves to hear honest, reasoned debate, not rants from professional hate mongers. Morgan's reaction to the blowback: She posted links to several critiques on her Web site, www. Roughly three hours after mocking Spare the Air Day on her radio program, a cable shout show producer invited Morgan to appear on TV that night. Minutes later on the air, Morgan prepared to introduce the best- selling author Coulter, a better- known provocateur whose most recent book ripped the Sept. Because Coulter, like Morgan, is blonde, telegenic and conservative, some critics dismissed Morgan as . But Morgan had already been on KSFO for four years before Coulter's first best- seller, . Or, as Morgan replied in an e- mail, . In fact, I was a snotty b - - long before Ann became famous. It was more than a throwaway line. It was an invitation to a seat at the conservative movement's grown- up table. From her perch in the most unlikely of places - - a small radio station about six blocks from some of the nation's largest antiwar demonstrations - - Morgan is becoming a national voice in the conservative movement. A voice that is likely to get louder this month, when she releases her first book, . The book opens a new avenue on Morgan's mission to point out what she sees as Sheehan's disrespect of American service personnel during wartime. The book compares how Sheehan reacted to her son Casey's death in Iraq - - from her activism to her political connections to the grisly details of her divorce - - with the reaction of the family of Army Specialist Justin Johnson, a friend of Casey Sheehan, who was killed days later in Iraq. While Cindy Sheehan focused her anger on President Bush, Justin's father, Joe, trained his on those who killed his son. He returned to Iraq as a soldier to avenge his son's death. Cindy Sheehan and her ex- husband declined to participate in the book, so their side is told largely through news clippings, her public comments, unnamed sources and other relatives and friends. The Johnson family was fully cooperative. She was a liberal - - and as a TV/radio news reporter, not a particularly vocal one - - until joining Rodgers at KSFO 1. Expressing one's political views, at least on the air, is considered unprofessional for a mainstream news reporter. In fact, the man who came up with the initially bizarre brainstorm of starting a conservative talk station in San Francisco didn't want to hire her. That man: Morgan's liberal husband, Jack Swanson. Until recently, Morgan was officially on the payroll of another company to avoid supervisory conflicts. Now, there is a layer of management between her and her husband. If she was exposed to any politics as a child growing up in suburban Kansas City, it was the Midwestern liberalism forged as the descendant of six generations of Democrats. Morgan's mother, Romain Morgan, still doesn't quite understand what happened to her daughter. The 7. 3- year- old lifelong Democrat lives 3. Springfield, Mo; Morgan's father died several years ago. Romain Morgan remembers 3- year- old Melanie sitting on the knee of former President Harry Truman, as the Missourian and old family friend sang . Which partially explains why Romain Morgan was so mad at her daughter's counter- protest of Sheehan last summer. Many issues related to her daughter's political conversion over the past decade has . As for the post- gas chamber comment attacks on her daughter, Romain Morgan said, . She can take the heat. She never got a graduate equivalency degree. Melanie's biggest revolt back then was successfully lobbying administrators to not have to wear the mandated Catholic school girls uniform. Morgan enrolled at Lindenwood University, outside of St.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
December 2016
Categories |