Chris Plante Biography
Chris Plante is an American syndicated radio talk show host born on December 12, 1959. He is based at WMAL Radio in Washington D.C., and heard on the Westwood One Network. Plante is a frequent guest on both Fox News and Fox Business.
He worked at CNN for 17 years, mostly covering The Pentagon and U.S. Military. At several times at CNN, Plante was a Pentagon Correspondent, Senior Producer for National Security Affairs, Military Affairs Producer and an assignment editor. He traveled to foreign locations, including Saudi Arabia, Bosnia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Africa and the remote corners of the former Soviet Union covering stories for CNN.
On September 11, 2011 Chris received the Edward R. Murrow Award from the Radio Television Digital News Association (RTNDA) for his reporting from the Pentagon during the terrorist attacks. He won a Reed Irvine Award for Excellence in Journalism in 2015. Chris is the Stepson of Bill Plante, a veteran journalist and correspondent for CBS News.
Chris Plante Age
Plante was born on December 12, 1959. He is 59 years old as of 2018 and is a Washington D.C. resident.
Chris Plante Family
He was born to Jules Orteig, Barbara Barnes Orteig Plante. He has brothers, Michael and Dan Plante.
Chris Plante Photo
Chris Plante Wife
Plante keeps his personal life very private and has not yet disclosed his relationship status.
WMAL Chris Plante
Plante joined WMAL doing a weekend radio show and sometimes hosting a joint show with liberal host Jerry Klein. WMAL serves the Washington, D.C. metro area. She moved to weeknights in 2005 and then moved to the midday time slot in 2008. His show was briefly replaced by The Joe Scarborough Show in 2009. Due to demand by fans, his show returned to the 9 AM – Noon time slot in October 2009.
He has filled in for national hosts including Mark Levin, Michael Savage and Rush Limbaugh.
Cumulus Media announced in 2016, Plante would be nationally syndicated by Westwood One. She replaced Herman Cain‘s program, which was then reverted to a local program. It continued to air in the Atlanta, Jacksonville, Orlando, Tulsa, and Dayton markets.
Chris Plante Show | Chris Plante Live | Chris Plante Podcast
Plante hosts The Chris Plante Show on Mon-Fri 9a-12pET / Sat 6a-9aET & 12p-3pET. The show offers listeners the inside word on the day’s top news stories with razor-sharp insight AND a unique sense of humor.
Chris Plante Live Stream | Chris Plante Streaming
You can listen to The Chris Plante Show live by tuning your radio to 105.9FM and 630AM, getting into any wmal.com page, and also getting the WMAL app on the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store.
Chris Plante Cruise
Plante has a 2019 trip departing July 13th. He refers to it as the The 2019 Amsterdam to London Cruise. Seven days aboard the ultra deluxe, silversea “silver wind”, they will Cruise in world class style for an unforgettable northern european and british isles cruise!
Chris Plante Twitter
Chris Plante Interview
Interviewer: Practically your entire family — mom, dad, stepdad, granddad, brothers — were and are prominent in the media. When did you first know that you wanted to go into the same business? Did you flirt with doing something totally non-news related or were you sold on it as a career from a young age?
Chris Plante: The truth is, I never had any desire to go into the news business. I grew up thinking it was way too demanding and all-consuming, and I assumed that I would go into any business other than the news business. But I had left my home town of Chicago at the age of 18, and was living in Santa Barbara, California in 1980 when Ronald Reagan was elected president. In a twist of fate, my step father, Bill Plante, was made White House correspondent for CBS News and began traveling to Santa Barbara regularly with President Reagan.
Since I knew the lay of the land, I was hired to work as a courier by CBS for those presidential trips. It paid $75 a day. One thing led to another. Several years later I moved to Washington, D.C. and all of the people I knew in Washington were in the news business. So, naturally I found some of those people, and next thing I knew, I had a job… as a courier. It was temporary. For the Iran-Contra hearings. Apparently, I had been pigeonholed.
Interviewer: You were a reporter and producer at CNN for a long time before becoming a talk show host. How did you make that transition to opinion from straight news?
Chris Plante: Soon, I needed another job. I found one as a researcher, on a freelance basis, with CNN’s Washington bureau. It paid … $75 a day.
Interviewer: Social media can, of course, be a good and a bad thing in many ways, but as a talk show host, does the tendency of social media to amplify every comment into a major conflagration ever weigh on you when you’re doing your show? Does the possibility that a remark will be taken out of (or in) context and used against you concern you — and should that be a concern for talk hosts in general?
Chris Plante: It certainly should be a concern for all of us. It’s rough out there, and not just for us talk show hosts or media people. We live in a crazy, sometimes zero-defect world. Unevenly applied, of course. It’s a line that everyone in the public eye walks. Just a part of the landscape. Be careful.
Interviewer: Partisan aspects aside, how do you think President Trump has affected talk radio — has his continual headline-making and tweeting been a net positive for talk radio as content and as a business? Do you think that effect will continue or will fatigue set in over time?
Chris Plante: May we live in interesting times. President Trump helps to make the news cycle a daily torrent. He is very engaged, very vocal, and he fights every fight. Everything he says or does causes a massive reaction from his opponents. So the fight is on, every day, all day. But it’s not just him. The very active opposition to him — and pretty much everything he says or does does — adds to the daily madness.
And the mainstream news media is not everything I would like it to be. You know the old saying, “It’s like trying to take a drink from a fire hose.” Well, today, it’s like standing under a waterfall with your head tilted back. It can pound a normal person into the ground. I can tell you that I have four to five hours of radio content at my fingertips every day when I go in. But I only have three hours on the air. Hmmm.
Interviewer: Who’s been the most memorable on-air guest you’ve had? Why?
Chris Plante: I rarely have guests on my show. But, the top guests would have to include former president Bill Clinton and President Trump. Both of them made a metric ton of news. I’m not sure it was all my doing. It was their words that made the splash.
Interviewer: Who, to date, have been your influences, inspirations, and/or mentors in the industry?
Chris Plante: In the world of talk radio, my former program director at WMAL, Paul Duckworth was a major influence, largely because I had no idea what I was doing when I started doing a radio show. Paul taught me a great deal. And my current program director, Bill Hess (not sucking up) has been very important to me and to my career path. Which is nice.
Interviewer: Of what are you most proud?
Chris Plante: Oh, I don’t know. I feel like I’m working hard and making progress in my life and my career. And that is gratifying. I don’t think I spend a lot of time being proud. I try not to mess things up.
Interviewer: Fill in the blank: I can’t make it through the day without ____________.
Chris Plante: …down time. Dialing out the mad universe of news for some period of time. That’s key to good living.
Interviewer: What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned in your career?
Chris Plante: Don’t be too impressed with yourself. No matter who you are, or how fancy your job is, you’re probably not that great. And there are a lot of people in this town that fail to observe this sensible rule for living. Lighten up. Be humble. No matter how cool you are.
