Talk:Melanie Morgan

Relocated from the article page --Bob Burton 00:56, 26 July 2007 (EDT)

Background

Morgan is a former television reporter and anchor before becoming a radio reporter in 1983 for San Francisco station KGO, an ABC network owned and operated station. While at KGO, she also covered news for ABC's national radio and TV networks. She visited Beirut, Lebanon for three weeks in 1983 to cover the U.S. Marine barracks bombing in Beirut, Lebanon. She also covered Mexico City's devastating earthquake of 1988 and the 1989 uprising in Tiananmen Square in China.

In 1990, Morgan resigned at KGO and moved to Seattle where her husband, Jack Swanson, had taken a job as General Manager for King AM & FM. While in Seattle, according to a report that aired in May 2000 on CBS News, she became addicted to gambling. "I felt totally comfortable behind a poker table," she told interviewer Troy Roberts. "I could just get high off the cards. ... On the credit cards, I probably ran up $ 25,000. ... And that doesn't count the cash that I was going through either." The gambling continued after she became pregnant, "I ended up going into labor early," she said. "Of course, I was in a terrible environment, smoke-filled room, hardly taking care of myself. Yeah, I was gambling right up until an hour before I gave birth." After her son was born, her gambling obsession led her to neglect the child, requiring an informal intervention by Child Protective Services. After counseling and sessions with Gamblers Anonymous, she says she was able to stop gambling in 1992, and in 1999 she became president of the California Council on Problem Gambling. She has not placed a bet in 13 years.

In the 1990s, Morgan returned to San Francisco and began working for KSFO, where she became an opinionated right-winger. She was active in the campaign to recall Democratic Governor Gray Davis and helped launch Move America Forward, a conservative response to MoveOn.org. She has spoken out against Michael Moore's movie, Fahrenheit 9/11, and has appeared as a commentator on Fox News, CNN, NPR, and been quoted in dozens of international publications as well as been the focus of a BBC report called "Radio Rage."