Connecting with an audience in today’s ever-changing media landscape can be tough. But Mary Walter has a talent for doing just that. She’s shown time and again that she knows how to build strong relationships with her listeners, a key factor in her success in her decades-long career.
Walter’s career journey took her from New Jersey 101.5 to WCTC (1450 AM) in New Brunswick and ultimately to WMAL in Washington D.C. She made history as the first female anchor of a morning show in New Jersey and gained even more recognition when both the Howard Stern Channel on Sirius XM and Fox News expressed interest in her achievements.
Walter is immersed in obligations that have made her busier than ever. Her podcast brings her joy as she enjoys the freedom to select the topics she discusses. Despite being an opinionated host, she places great importance on the factual aspects of significant news stories. Thanks to her expertise, she is in high demand, with broadcasters across the country eager for her to step in for them.
Through her work with Newsmax and Fox News, she has gained invaluable insights into a pivotal era in cable news, which could potentially rival the emergence of Fox News as the leading channel in America.
In a sit-down with Barrett News Media, Walter shared her thoughts on her career journey, Chris Licht’s departure from CNN, Newsmax’s significance in the media landscape, and much more.
Ryan Hedrick: What led you to join the team at Newsmax TV?
Mary Walter: I had done some work for Newsmax in New York City in 2013-2014, and they were starting out there. It was a skeleton operation, and I was doing some shows with them back then, and it just petered out, and I said to myself, ‘These people aren’t going anywhere.’ (Laughs).
RH: With Chris Licht leaving CNN and turmoil going on at Fox News, how do perceive Newsmax’s role in the media landscape?
MW: Newsmax, right now, is sitting in the catbird seat. Chris Ruddy has been deliberate in his choices. You see him scooping up people for — whatever reason — left Fox News, or were pushed out of Fox News. He’s got Greta Van Susteren and Eric Bolling. He also has Jen Pellegrino, who was an intern at Fox News. Quite a few bookers at Newsmax used to be at Fox News. I think it was smart for Chris (Ruddy) to bring many people over from Fox News because many of them already know each other.
RH: Did you see something special in Newsmax when you started?
MW: I thought the network was a good idea, but they were taking on Fox News, and Fox was at its heyday. I was very blessed to be at Fox when it was at its zenith, so you didn’t foresee coming down the road what happened to Fox News. In a way, Chris Ruddy (Newsmax CEO) is a visionary in that sense. He said I can be the giant killer, and good for him, he’s stuck with it, and he’s done a great job.
RH: The news media industry has been undergoing rapid changes in recent years. How do you think these changes have impacted how news is consumed and delivered, particularly in conservative news?
MW: I think it has become easier to consume what you want to consume, to hear what you want to hear, and I don’t think that’s a good thing. I also think we have blurred the line between opinion and news. When I think of a journalist, I think of someone like James Rosen at Newsmax or Bret Baier at Fox News. Those guys don’t give their opinion. We used to have Bret on at WMAL, and we used to play a game to get him to give his opinion, and he could wiggle out of those six ways from Sunday. I just had James Rosen on my podcast, and we talked about everything but politics.
Somebody like me is an opinion host. People only hear what they want to hear. Somebody like Chris Licht comes in at CNN and says there’s another opinion out there, and we’re going to carry it, and employees went in on a full revolt.
I think not being forced to consume something you don’t want to hear is detrimental in many ways. That is one thing that I think conservative media does a little better than liberal media is that both Fox News and Newsmax TV will have someone that has a different opinion. I think it’s a very dangerous road you go down when you don’t hear anything other than what everyone around you says.
RH: When did your journey at WMAL in Washington DC begin?
MW: I was at WMAL before Newsmax in 2011 and did some fill-in shows. Fred Grandy had the morning show, and he left, and I co-hosted with Brian Nehman, who I think had been on Fred Grandy. I co-hosted with Brian for a couple of weeks.
RH: What was your first break in the industry?
MW: My first job in this industry, I had zero radio experience. New Jersey 101.5 FM was a huge station at the time, it was only a year old but had taken the state by storm, and also in the Philadelphia area. You could even hear it in New York. It wasn’t like your typical political talker; they did a lot of New Jersey stuff and a lot of lifestyle stuff.
The station had a show at night that was a relationship show, and the woman who hosted was leaving, and they had an on-air contest to replace her. My husband was in Philly, and I was driving down there, and you had to call in, and they had some women on who had called in from the night before, and they were going to take your questions. So, long story short, I called, and they called me back the next day. I had nothing else to do at the time. I was a computer consultant, and they offered me the job within a week.
RH: What did you do after you left New Jersey 101.5?
MW: I got fired after five years of being at New Jersey 101.5 because everybody gets fired in radio (laughs). After that, I went to WCTC in New Brunswick, NJ. It’s a small local talker in Somerset County, but I was the first woman in the state to be the anchor of a morning talk show. First-morning host in New Jersey.
I did that for four years, and then the 9/11 attacks happened, and I wound up back at New Jersey 101.5 because the company got sold, and my old boss wound up being my new boss, so he hired me back. I did that for five years and got to work with Craig Carton, and after five years, and out the door again, and I got contacted by Howard Stern and Fox News.
RH: Why did Howard and Fox News reach out to you simultaneously?
MW: Back in the day, there used to be a radio column in the New York Daily News, and it ran every Thursday. You used to be able to hear New Jersey 101.5 in New York City before they made them pull their signal back. That’s how Sean Hannity knew me, that’s how Geraldo Rivera knew me, so people knew that station.
At the time, Howard Stern had just gotten three stations from Sirius, and they were paying him like $100 million to program these stations. So, I got contacted by Tim Sabean, who was his guy at the time, and Mike Elder from Fox News because Fox had just started Fox News Radio about six months before.
It was a crazy time. I also got contacted by a station in Philadelphia and a bunch of other people. At the time, talk radio was huge, and radio itself was huge at the time. This was before Comrex and ISDNs. You had to drive to the job, and I said I wasn’t driving to Philadelphia, but I considered the possibility of taking the train into New York.
I never got offered anything by any of Howard’s people, but they wanted me to recreate the relationship show; that’s what the conversations were about. A week later, I went into Fox, and I thought that they had a great operation plus there were more opportunities there for TV and for my career to grow. I thought it was a more high-profile job. The Howard Stern thing died, and the Fox News thing prospered.
RH: As someone who has worked in both television and radio, what are some key differences you’ve noticed in terms of storytelling and engaging with the audience?
WM: I love radio. I’m a radio creature. I love the longer form. I love being able to take calls from the audience because sometimes I learn things, sometimes they challenge me, and sometimes you can change my thinking.
That, to me, is what radio should be about. Radio should be an exchange of ideas. It should be that soapbox in the town square instead of me just monologuing for two hours. That’s my style, I like to engage the audience. You can’t do that so much on TV. At Fox News, it’s an hour and a half for hair and makeup for three minutes on camera.
They are such different mediums. It’s so much easier to go from radio to TV. If you host on radio and you know what it’s like to fill a 15-20 minute on one topic versus TV where you are reading the teleprompter, and you’ve got two other people on set with you, and everybody gets to say one thing, and you move on, it’s a totally different animal. So, it’s easier to go from radio to TV than it is to go from TV to radio. I think that a lot of TV people think it’s going to be so easy, and they flame out spectacularly because there’s a lot of prep that goes into the radio.
RH: What have been some of the most memorable moments or interviews during your time at Newsmax and WMAL? Is there a particular story or event that stands out to you?
WM: Probably the most memorable was sitting in the White House with Donald Trump. That was one of the gifts that WMAL gave me, and I will forever be grateful. I did not like living in Washington D.C. because if you’re not a D.C. person, I think you find it difficult to live there. Being in D.C. when Trump was president and being a conservative at that time was an incredible experience. By the way, I am not a registered Republican. With Trump, we received an invitation at 2 o’clock in the afternoon, but we didn’t know who we were meeting with or who it was for.
Trump wanted to talk to the people that put him in office. We were in the press briefing room, and then they brought us into the Oval Office, and when the doors opened, Trump told us to come on in. I don’t care who the president is, it’s an incredible experience. Trump was everything you expected him to be. He said to us that he wanted to know what the listeners thought about him because he knew those were the people that put him into office.
RH: With the rise of social media and digital platforms, news consumption habits have changed significantly. How have these changes affected your evolution as a talent?
MW: I’m on Twitter, I’m on MeWe, I’m on Gettr, I’m on those things. I spend a lot of time posting because my schedule is so crazy from day to day. I send links to all of my podcasts where you can listen and watch afterward. And I do find that social media can be good and bad.
It’s just like what’s happening in the cable news area and the consumption of news. You can build that information bubble. On Twitter, you have the people you follow, and then you have “for you,” which is not necessarily the people you follow. I’m always on the “for you” because I want to hear other people’s opinions.
I want to hear other things. I know what I think and how I view stuff, I want to be challenged, and I think it’s part of my job to be challenged. I’m on Twitter a lot, and I’m on social media a lot to see how other people are taking the same story that I just saw and interpreting totally differently.
RH: In an era where “fake news” and misinformation are frequently discussed, how do you approach fact-checking and ensuring the accuracy of the information you present?
MW: The advent of all of this is facts versus feelings. So, if I don’t like your facts or you’re hurting my feelings, then suddenly, it’s fake news. With the way Trump popularized that saying “fake news”, he was calling these people out for publishing stories.
At the time, we didn’t know what he knew. He knew that The New York Times was given this stuff. He knew that the Times had published the story about the dossier, which was fake. The initial use of mis and disinformation, and fake news was dead on. It has now been co-opted to describe anything I disagree with. I am always tweeting out links to stories with verifiable facts.
RH: Are there any projects or initiatives you find particularly exciting and would like our readers to know about?
MW: I love my podcast. It’s Mary Walter Radio, live on YouTube and Gettr, 7:15 EST on Tuesdays. It’s also on Apple iTunes and Spotify. We have an election coming up in New Jersey, so I am watching that.
Other than that, I am keeping busy by being on the fill-in for Todd Starnes, Rob Carson, Mandy Connell, and then, of course on Newsmax. I also fill in for Brian Kilmeade and Guy Benson on Fox News Radio.
