Leonard Lopate

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Leonard Lopate
WNYC radio host Leonard Lopate
Show	The Leonard Lopate Show
Station(s)	WNYC
Style	Talk show host
Country	United States

Leonard Lopate is host of the public radio talk show The Leonard Lopate Show, broadcast on WNYC^[1]. He first broadcast on WKCR, the college radio station of Columbia University—where his brother Phillip was a student—then, later, at WBAI, before ultimately moving to WNYC.^{[citation needed]}

1 Biography
2 The Leonard Lopate Show
- 2.1 Trivia
3 Notes

[edit] Biography

Lopate came to radio relatively late in life. He was trained as a serious painter (he studied with Ad Reinhardt and Mark Rothko) and worked in advertising for fifteen years. But when he was given a chance to host his first talk show on WBAI in 1977, he was hooked. What began as a whim has become his life’s work. And his background in art and literature (and in the commercial world) has been a major factor in his success.

Mr. Lopate appears regularly at one of New York’s most prestigious cultural venues, the 92nd Street Y, where he interviews celebrities and moderates his on-going panel series, “Comparing Notes.” He has also appeared in a similar capacity at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Queens College, Brooklyn College, the New York Public Library, the Brooklyn Public Library, the Alliance Francaise and the New School and created a series of discussions on literature for the international writer’s organization, PEN^[2].

His brother is the writer Phillip Lopate. He is married to freelance news anchor Emily Hoffman and lives in Park Slope.^[3].

[edit] The Leonard Lopate Show

Leonard Lopate’s two-hour weekday talk show on public radio stations WNYC AM and FM was originally entitled "New York & Company." The name was later changed to "The Leonard Lopate Show." Segments of the show are available as podcasts found on iTunes and on the station's website [2]. The show is also aired on XM Satellite Radio, channel 133, every weekday from 4 pm to 6 pm Eastern. The show covers a broad range of topics including jazz and gospel music, food and wine, literature, the arts, science and history. Lopate has interviewed politicians, poets, painters, novelists, filmmakers, actors, dancers and more than a few Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winners. Lopate introduced two ongoing features to the program. One is called "Please Explain" in which he talks with experts on a wide variety of topics. The topics are not tied to book or movie releases and can be described as general interest. In 2006, some of the topics he's delved into include sainthood, nanotechnology, insomnia, infertility and meditation. ^[4] The other feature is called "Underreported" in which he delves deeply into political and social issues.^[5]

For the show's 20th Anniversary, Tom Brokaw interviewed Lopate about the history of the show, Lopate's goals and interviewing style.^[6]

[edit] Trivia

On Thursday, March 6, 2003 in an episode titled "Behind The Lines", Jonathan Idema appeared on the show. The episode's description reads, "Former Green Beret Jack Idema, the man responsible for capturing the inafamous al-Qaeda training video tapes, gives an inside account of America’s war in Afghanistan."^[7] Idema's appearance occurred when he was popular among news-media, he is now incarcerated in an Afghan prison for running a private jail, entering the country illegally, and torture.