John Batchelor

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

John Batchelor is a writer and was host of the "John Batchelor Show" radio news magazine. Based at WABC radio in New York for five years from September 12, 2001, to September 1, 2006, the show was syndicated nationally on the ABC radio network. Batchelor is a 1970 graduate of Princeton University and a 1976 graduate of Union Theological Seminary.

1 Broadcasting
2 Show cancellation and possible return
3 Work
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Broadcasting

John Batchelor and his original co-host, Paul Alexander, began broadcasting "Batchelor and Alexander" on WABC in New York on the night after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States. ABC News asked the pair to host the show until Osama bin Laden was either killed or captured. [1] However, on or about September 8, 2001, John Batchelor and Paul Alexander were broadcasting on WABC radio under a show name different from their subsequent, formal program; the September 8 show was a serious discussion on both Al-Qaeda and the unanswered U.S. government response to the USS Cole bombing [2].

Alexander left the show in December 2003 to pursue work as a playwright [3] and biographer. [4]

The show was syndicated nationally; its proponents claim that it had is said to have had the world's best reporting on the war on terror^{[citation needed]}. It carried nightly (M-F) the John Loftus report 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 Malcom Hoenlein, the executive vice president of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations [5], as well as David Grinspoon[6], resident expert on the planet Mars and outer space. The program also featured reports from journalists' filing with the world's most respected press outlets and was reliably a few days ahead of the news cycle.

Batchelor's show was unique in its content and presentation. Usually featuring multiple guests, shows were preceded and interspersed with news clips and music. The show featured a myriad of topics including politics, the war on terror, nuclear proliferation, the U.N., African civil war, 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. [7]

The blogger known as Pundita wrote: "Batchelor's show represents post-partisan, intelligence-based news analysis and reporting. He and his sources unpack background to major news events over days, months, and even years so that the listener develops an in-depth, coherent view of a particular region or issue.^[1]

"First American news program to treat the United States as a superpower nation. First American news program to look at international news from a uniquely American perspective. First news program to integrate daily news coverage with 21st century issues--energy, space exploration, etc.

". . . Analysis of US politics and European/other world region politics--Middle East, China, India, Former Soviet Union, African countries, etc. Reports regularly on State Department, White House, Congress, US intelligence agencies. Nightly in-depth reporting on war on terror. US history discussions, strong on US war history. Cultural trends. Discussions about new books on literary/historical figures." [8]

To report on breaking news, Batchelor and a small staff travelled to Israel, Jordan, Kazakhstan, and Taiwan, landing in Taipei to broadcast a week before the 2004 elections, when both the president and the vice-president were shot and wounded by an unknown assailant.

[edit] Show cancellation and possible return

On Monday, August 25, 2006, John Batchelor announced on air that his last show on ABC Radio Network would be on Friday, September 1, and that the show would go into hiatus "to return probably in late fall of 2006".[9]

WABC's Manager Phill 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.

Some words from John Batchelor (11/30/06):

back in the new year

Thank you

On sabbatical

All well

Hoover Institution Digital Network/ John Batchelor Show 2.0 (HIDN/JBS2.0) (in development)

On December 5, 2006 Batchelor wrote as a comment to one of his columns at the The New York Sun [10] "there is much certainty of going back on air next year in partnership with the Hoover Institution at Stanford University: details to be announced over the next weeks by my partners."

Received an email from John stating the following: Good New Year to you. The New Year brings the fresh enterprise of the new show launching with the springtime. This is not the full scale announcement, as that must wait for contracts to be signed. For now, it is comfortable to say that I will be in partnership with the sturdy Hoover Institution of War, Revolution and Peace of Stanford University, and it is also safe to say that my main studio will be in Manhattan near Ground Zero.

Looks like we are getting close!!!!