John Batchelor Biography
John Batchelor (full name: John Calvin Batchelor) is an American author and host of The John Batchelor Show. He is a veteran novelist, author of seven political romances as well as a short history of the Republican Party.
Batchelor joined WABC-AM in New York City on September 12, 2001. This was the day after the fall of the Twin Towers. He was recruited to go on the air until Osama bin Laden was either killed or captured.
The John Batchelor Show was syndicated nationally on the ABC radio network at AM 770 WABC radio in New York for five years from early 2001 to September 2006. Batchelor is an active member of the Briarcliff Congregational Church.
John Batchelor attended Princeton University graduating in 1970. He is also a graduate of Union Theological Seminary in New York.
John Batchelor Age
John Calvin Batchelor was born on April 29, 1948 in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, U.S. He is 71 years old as of 2018.
John Batchelor Photo
John Batchelor Family
Batchelor was born to an Assyrian mother from Iran and a Midwestern American father. He was then raised primarily in Lower Merion Township of Montgomery County, in Pennsylvania’s 13th congressional district. His both parents served in the United States Army during World War II. His father also served in the Korean War. He was born the eldest of five brothers.
John Batchelor Wife
Batchelor got married to the Rev. Dr. Bonnie Ann Rosborough in 1987. The couple has two children; Sam and Anna.
John Batchelor Radio
Batchelor co-hosted Batchelor and Alexander with writer Paul Alexander on WABC in New York for over two years. The two focused on international issues with special attention to Middle East-based terrorism. John Batchelor described their approach: “Our model is the BBC World Service, with music and live interviews, but without English accents.”
Three days before the September 11 attacks, the duo presented a four-hour WABC show on the USS Cole bombing, interviewing several guests. Paul left the show in December 2003 to pursue work as a playwright and biographer.
Batchelor next substituted as host for Matt Drudge on July 22, 2007. This show was nearly identical in format to his ABC show, including contributions from Klein and Loftus, among many other guests. He also returned to fill in for Drudge on September 2, 2007.
He returned as the host of a weekly version of the previous show on October 7, 2007, from 7–10 PM Eastern Time. Batchelor also hosted 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 PM Pacific time. Batchelor expanded his show to Saturday and Sunday nights, from 9 PM to 1 AM, on most of his affiliates in 2009.
The Saturday show focused more on authors of history books, while that of Sunday focused on breaking news and a wider range of topics. WABC announced on November 24, 2009 that the Batchelor show would be also airing weeknights from 9 PM to 1 AM, effective November 30. He was a frequent guest on the Gene Countryman Show, KNSS, Wichita, Kansas, Sundays at 8 PM Eastern.
Batchelor on Tuesdays previously featured an hour with Larry Kudlow on finance (until Kudlow became an advisor to President Trump). On Wednesdays an hour with professor Stephen Cohen on Russia and an hour-plus with Gordon Chang on China and East Asia, and also one or two segments on private exploration of space with Dr. David Livingston. On Thursdays, he had an hour with Mary Kissel on domestic U.S. politics, foreign policy, and matters Australian (until Kissel became a senior advisor to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo). Thhis was followed by an hour and a half with Malcolm Hoenlein on the Middle East.
John Batchelor Show | John Batchelor Podcast | The John Batchelor Show
The John Batchelor Show began its national syndication in April 2003 airing 20 hours a week on roughly 200 stations. The show’s focus is geopolitics, economics, war, history, hard sciences, literature, private space, whimsy, among others. The show carried nightly (Mon-Fri) the “Loftus Report” featuring the intelligence commentator John Loftus on current, war-related, open-source intelligence. Aaron Klein a weekend radio host, at the time Jerusalem bureau chief for WorldNetDaily, was also a regular and served as a co-host.
Other regular contributors of the show included Malcolm Hoenlein, Ed Hayes, Larry Kudlow, Bill Whelan, John Fund, Bret Stephens, Dan Henninger, Rob Pollock and Kim Strassel of the Wall Street Journal, Jim McTague, Chuck Todd, Fiona Harvey and Martin Wolf of the Financial Times, Jodi Schneider, Matt Bai and A. O. Scott of the New York Times; Katrina vanden Heuvel and Stephen F. 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; Monica Crowley; David Grinspoon, resident expert on the planet Mars and outer space, and also Robert Zimmerman, award-winning NASA observer.
The John Batchelor Show daily featured reports from journalists who filed with the world’s most respected press outlets. It was reliably a few days ahead of the news cycle.
When Batchelor occasionally took a break for several evenings, and Jed Babbin, editor of Human Events in Washington, D.C. acted as a fill-in for him. Sometimes former BBC journalist John Terrett, who now works for al Jazeera hosted the show. Sometimes Larry Kudlow of CNBC’s Kudlow & Company and WABC’s Larry Kudlow Show also fills in for him.
Simon Constable of Dow Jones; Chris Riback, author and researcher, and Francis Rose of Federal News Radio in Washington, D.C., became primary fill-ins. The show featured multiple guests, and shows were preceded by and interspersed with news clips and music. To report on breaking news, John and his executive producer have travelled domestically to hotspots, and to Azerbaijan, Qatar, Israel, Jordan, Kazakhstan, France, Poland and Taiwan.
They all landed 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.
Batchelor Batchelor announced on air that his ABC show would be canceled on Monday, August 25, 2006 beginning with the show scheduled for the next Monday, September 1.
John Batchelor Live Stream | John Batchelor Show Live Stream | John Batchelor Show Live
Live stream 9 PM to 1 AM ET weekdays, on 770 WABC-AM in New York City, WBNW in Boston, 630 WMAL-AM in Washington, D.C., 630 WPRO-AM in Providence.
John Batchelor Books
Batchelor has authored his books as John Batchelor himself and as Tommy “Tip” Paine.
Writing as John Calvin Batchelor
The Further Adventures of Halley’s Comet (1980) (novel)
The Birth of the People’s Republic of Antarctica, Dial Press (1983) (novel)
American Falls (1985) (novel)
Thunder in the Dust: Classic Images of Western Movies (1987) (with John R. Hamilton)
Peter Nevsky and the True Story of the Russian Moon Landing (1993) (novel)
Father’s Day, (1994) (novel)
“Ain’t You Glad You Joined the Republicans?”: A Short History of the GOP (May 1996) (nonfiction)
Writing as Tommy “Tip” Paine
Gordon Liddy Is My Muse (1990) (novel)
Walking the Cat (1991) (novel)
