Mark Riley
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- This article is about the American radio host. For other people with the same name, see Mark Riley (disambiguation)
Mark Riley (b. September 22, 1951) is an American journalist and commentator, and was until recently the host of a four-hour evening news, interview, comment, and culture program, The Air Americans, on the liberal talk-radio network Air America Radio. Broadcasting from 8:00 p.m. to midnight ET, the program featured Riley's own segments as well as contributions from other Air America hosts (see box below). It first went on the air on Monday, May 21, 2007, after Riley had been host or co-host of two other Air America programs.
On the program of Monday, August 6, 2007, substitute David Bender appeared in Riley's place to announce that Riley had left the network and also that The Air Americans had been canceled by Air America and would leave the airwaves in one month's time.
Riley currently is employed by WLIB, where he had previously worked for 4 years in the 1990's.
Riley’s first radio opportunity was as host of the public affairs program Urban Notebook, which skyrocketed in popularity throughout the New York tri-state area. In 1986, Riley moved to the prime time morning slot and broadcast live from the famous Apollo Theater in Harlem. Since that time, Riley has worked his way up through a spectrum of roles including writer, editor, managing editor, executive editor, and program director.
During his 1992-1996 tenure as program director of New York's WLIB (1190 AM), Riley identified the diversity of the WLIB audience and set out to establish more balance between the African American and Caribbean dimensions of the station's programming. Riley also pioneered the station's efforts to enhance listener awareness in the political arena, airing full coverage of all Democratic and Republican conventions since 1990, as well as coverage of both Democratic Inaugurals in Haiti.
Over his career, Riley has interviewed former President Bill Clinton, South African President Nelson Mandela, former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, former New York mayor David Dinkins, current New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, Lena Horne, Spike Lee, Max Roach, Bill Cosby, Harry Belafonte, Muhammad Ali, Cornel West, and Don King. Mark also interviewed a young up-and-coming recording artist, Regina Spektor. In 2007, Mark interviewed Sanjaya Malakar from season 6 of American Idol, right before he got eliminated.
In March 2004, Air America began broadcasting from New York, with WLIB as its flagship station. Riley was one of the few holdovers from the WLIB staff, and co-hosted the morning drive program Morning Sedition. In December 2005, he began hosting The Mark Riley Show (also on Air America), a two-hour morning news program. This show ended on May 11, 2007, so that Riley and his producers could prepare for the launch of The Air Americans.[1] After the cancellation of the show, Riley and Richard Bey became the host of now-Air America flagship WWRL's morning show, a partnership that lasted until Riley's return to WLIB.
In addition to radio, Riley is a popular TV political analyst with frequent appearances on The Road to City Hall on New York 1 News and The Lou Dobbs Show on CNN.
Riley has also appeared as a commentator on BET, CNN, The Charles Grodin Show, CNN's Reporters Roundtable, the Fox News Channel's Hannity & Colmes, The CBS Early Show, and MSNBC.
International credits include work as a contributor for BBC Radio and a documentary producer for the BBC2 in London.
