R&R Adds Drudge To TRS Lineup
Talk host/'Net reporter to make rare appearance

Premiere Radio Networks talk host and Internet reporter Matt Drudge has joined the lineup for the upcoming R&R Talk Radio Seminar, set to be held later this month in Washington, DC. Drudge will speak at a special general session exclusively for TRS 2004 attendees on Saturday morning, Feb. 28.

Considered the Internet's hottest news reporter via his groundbreaking website, the Drudge Report (www.drudgereport.com), Drudge in the past few years has also become a weekend Talk radio star. His three-hour, syndicated, Sunday-night radio show now airs on a reported 250-plus stations nationwide, with such major-market heavy hitters as WABC/New York; KFI/Los Angeles; WLS/Chicago; WPHT/Philadelphia; KSFO/San Francisco; WRKO/Boston; and WMAL/Washington, DC among the show's affiliates.

A self-proclaimed "loner" and "news junkie," Drudge first started his popular website in 1995 because he wanted to give the American people information he believes is correct and important. Drudge's unique and dogged reporting style has literally revolutionized the media industry. His scoop of the Monica Lewinsky/Bill Clinton scandal turned him into a household name and propelled the Drudge Report into one of the Internet's most-visited websites that today attracts a reported 150 million page views each month.

The trendsetting cyber-reporter and Talk radio host shattered records once again following the recent firestorm surrounding pop star Janet Jackson's Super Bowl appearance. Even as the game was still being played, the Drudge Report posted the first still pictures of the exposure of Jackson's breast and denials from both the NFL and CBS that they knew of the stunt in advance. The site went on to get more than 30 times its usual daily number of hits in the 24 hours following the incident.

Drudge joins a TRS 2004 lineup of special guest speakers that includes ABC News' Peter Jennings; Fox News' Tony Snow; and legendary CBS News reporter and commentator Mike Wallace, who will be honored with the 2004 R&R News/Talk Radio Lifetime Achievement Award.

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R&R Adds Snow To TRS Lineup
Fox News personality set to address attendees

Fox News anchor and personality Tony Snow has been added to the lineup of the upcoming R&R Talk Radio Seminar in Washington, DC. Snow will keynote a general session for TRS attendees on Friday morning, Feb. 27.

Snow, who will launch a daily national Talk radio show syndicated by Fox News Radio this spring, is currently the host of Weekend Live With Tony Snow, which airs Saturdays from noon-2pm ET on cable TV's Fox News Channel. The well connected DC insider also serves as an FNC political analyst and contributes to the network's political and election news coverage.

Anticipating the debut of his upcoming radio show, Snow recently stepped down as host of Fox News Sunday, the weekly public affairs program on Fox's broadcast TV network. As host of the show for the past seven years Snow has interviewed numerous world and U.S. leaders, including National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Before joining Fox News in 1996 Snow was a nationally syndicated columnist with the Detroit News. His newspaper career also included stints at USA Today and the Washington Times. In 1991 he took a sabbatical from journalism to work at the White House for President George H. Bush. Snow first served as the deputy assistant to the president for communications and director of speechwriting and later as deputy assistant to the president for media affairs.

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Peter Jennings Joins TRS Lineup
ABC news anchor will host exclusive interview

ABC World News Tonight anchor and senior editor Peter Jennings has been added to the lineup of the ninth annual R&R Talk Radio Seminar, set to be held Feb. 26-28, 2004 in Washington, DC. Jennings, who is ABC's principal anchor for breaking news, election coverage and special events, will go one-on-one with a soon-to-be-announced special guest in an exclusive live interview for TRS 2004 attendees only.

As one of America's most distinguished journalists, Jennings has reported many of the pivotal events that have shaped our world. He was in Berlin in the 1960s when the Berlin Wall was going up and was there again in the '90s when it came down. The winner of 14 Emmy Awards, Jennings covered the civil-rights movement in the U.S. during the 1960s and the struggle for equality in South Africa during the '70s and '80s. He's worked in every European nation that was once behind the Iron Curtain and was in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Romania and throughout the Soviet Union to record first the repression of communism and then its demise. One of the first reporters to go to Vietnam in the 1960s, Jennings went back to the killing fields of Cambodia two decades later to remind Americans that unless they did something the terror would return.

A well recognized figure around the world from his more than four decades on television, Jennings is also a frequent contributor to ABC News Radio and continues to anchor a daily primetime newscast on the network. His special appearance at TRS 2004 will take place immediately following lunch on Friday, Feb. 27.

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R&R To Honor Mike Wallace
CBS News vet to receive Lifetime Achievement Award

Legendary CBS News journalist and commentator Mike Wallace has been selected as the 2004 recipient of R&R's News/Talk Radio Lifetime Achievement Award. Wallace will accept the award during a luncheon to be held in his honor at the upcoming R&R Talk Radio Seminar.

Over the course of what is still an active broadcasting career that has spanned some 60-plus years, Wallace has distinguished himself as one of America's most respected and admired journalists. His tough, brazen and probing style has made his name synonymous with the term "tough interview," a style he essentially invented more than a half-century ago. The Hall of Fame broadcaster is also the recipient of an amazing 19 Emmy Awards, three DuPont and Peabody awards and the 1996 Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award's grand prize. Wallace currently holds the record for the longest reign of any individual on a network TV program, 60 Minutes, the groundbreaking news-magazine show on which he has appeared since its debut in 1968.

Although Wallace's face is widely recognized by millions from his many years of appearing on the long-running 60 Minutes, his early broadcast career began at the University of Michigan's radio station, where a professor helped the young student broadcaster land his first gig as an announcer and "rip and read" reporter at WOOD/Grand Rapids. Wallace followed that with moves to WXYZ/Detroit, where he was the narrator for The Green Hornet and Cunningham News Ace, and WMAQ/Chicago, where he hosted his very first interview program, Famous Names, in the late 1940s. The show led to his first network TV appearance as the lead in a police drama, Stand by for Crime, a 1949 program that was the first show ever to be transmitted from Chicago to the East Coast. Two years later Wallace moved to New York to join CBS, where he has remained for the past 52 years.

"There is no one more deserving of this honor than Mike," said CBS News VP/Radio Harvey Nagler. "His journalistic triumphs read like a 'who's who' of American history. Even though Mike made the transition to television from radio years ago, he has never forgotten his roots in radio, and to this day he continues to be a prolific contributor to CBS Radio News."

— Al Peterson

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