Progressive Profiles: With New TV Show, Radio Talker Thom Hartmann Brings Substance to Style

[Joanne98]

It's 9pm in the middle of a busy week and Thom Hartmann, the nation's most popular progressive talk radio host, is just sitting down to dinner with his wife Louise at a crowded Washington restaurant.

As host of "The Thom Hartmann Program" (heard on 120 affiliates, according to the show's Web site), Thom did his customary three hours of radio earlier in the day, and just wrapped up an episode of his hour-long daily cable television program, "The Big Picture," which airs on RTTV and was just picked up by Free Speech TV, which runs the show over the Dish and DirecTV networks. (It's also available from iTunes in podcast form.) It's a typical 14-hour day for Hartmann, but he's hardly worse for the wear. At 59, he looks at least 10 years younger, and his energy is still bubbling over. Louise, just back from a day at the hospital with a friend who rushed there in an emergency, begs off the interview, wanting nothing more than a quiet meal after a stressful day.

The Hartmanns are new to the nation's capital, drawn here from Oregon by the television deal with RTTV, which includes the brand-new, state-of-the-art studio where "The Big Picture" is produced, near the National Press Building, not far from the White House. Louise handles much of the business end of the show, while Thom is the on-air personality. The staff also includes a producer, director and researchers. The Hartmanns have complete editorial control of the show, which appears on RT and is produced in its facilities through a licensing agreement with the network. The RT network was launched in 2005 as a Russian counterpart to the BBC News Channel, Al Jazeera and France 24.

For the radio program, the Hartmanns have built a new studio on Capitol Hill.

On the short walk from the RTTV studios to the restaurant, we've already talked about four books and a couple of the founding fathers. Thom shows me the books he's downloaded to his smart phone. I notice The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. Thom has a theory about Franklin: The founder, he says, had attention deficit disorder. Hartmann is something of an expert on the subject.

http://www.alternet.org/vision/149540/progressive_profiles%3A_with_new_tv_show%2C_radio_talker_thom_hartmann_brings_substance_to_style/

[BrklynLiberal]

1. It buoys my spirit to find that someone like Thom Hartmann has a place in the media...and that place

appears to be getting larger and larger.

[David__77]

2. We have to leverage all media available.

Whether al-Jazeera, RT, or CCTV. It doesn't matter. We need to break the corporate cordon - just ask Donahue what happens to progressive hosts on US channels, even with good ratings.

[snappyturtle]

3. K&R This is an excellent article....told me so much about Thom Hartmann.

He's done a lot of living for 59 years!

Thanks for posting!