Firefighter, actor, car enthusiast, and radio anchor. WTOP morning host John Aaron is more than just a jack-of-all trades, he’s living his dream hosting on the same station he listened to as a kid. “It’s super cool, I did not plan it this way,” Aaron told Barrett Media. “It was just kind of the way fate imagined things for me, I guess. I’ve been consuming news voraciously ever since I was a young kid, and WTOP was a big part of that.”
Aaron was always interested in news. “I’ve just always consumed news like crazy,” he said. “When I was a kid, I remember when we first got cable, I would watch Headline News, and my little sister would be going crazy because she wanted to watch some Nickelodeon cartoon and I’m like, ‘No, I want to watch the news.’”
The decision to study broadcasting was easy, and Aaron was making plans even in high school. “When I was in high school, I was a huge baseball fan and I thought that was my calling, writing about baseball,” he said. “I wound up studying the communications aspect of everything in college and then realizing I liked the radio/TV part of the program as much as I like the writing, because I do absolutely love the writing part. I think [writing] is a really important part of being a good professional in our job. Being able to write well not just for your audience, but also if you have to do something in print form.”
While he attended Villanova University he said, “I was a fireman in college [in Radnor, Pennsylvania]. That was like a huge learning experience for me in terms of, working under pressure and getting used to being on alert all the time. And it also helps me talk to our first responders.”
After school (and fighting fires) he landed an anchor/reporter role in Gettysburg and then covered sports for Comcast SportsNet before coming home to Washington, D.C. Today he and his co-host, Michelle Basch, give life to a 5-hour morning show five days a week. “We’re always scanning,” he said. “We’re always looking for things. We don’t have a shortage of news in Washington DC so that kind of works itself out where the news is constantly coming in.”
Their show is more than just news, they look for the fun stories, stories that make you think and some that “aren’t being picked up far and wide but are still really interesting and really impactful to people.”
Additionally, what makes theirs a top show in the market are the friendships which happen off mic. “Michelle and I are friends, so we click great on air, and all of that comes through in the final product… We work really well with our producers. They’re outstanding. Our whole team is really great, and we’re able to get past that level of, ‘hey, here is what’s happening’ [and bring our listeners to] ‘here’s what’s happening and here’s the context and if you take a step back, this is why this is important.’”
Aaron noted the person pushing the show to greater heights is his co-host. “Michelle is outstanding,” he said. “I think that she should be given full credit for showing up every single day and coming totally prepared to make us better. And I love the fact that she critiques the hell out of everything, especially my work…She gets so much credit for raising the bar where we are.
“I had been filling in in the morning show for like ten years, and I’ve been anchoring on weekends, reporting during the week. So I don’t think I was an unknown quantity, but still, to give me the opportunity that I knew I could do but maybe other people didn’t necessarily know for sure that I could.”
One of Aaron’s favorite segments is the Friday Test Drive. “I get cars from manufacturers, I drive them for a week and then I give them back,” he said. “Then I write a piece that is a bunch of silly jokes and for some reason they keep giving me cars,” he added in jest.
A notable review is that of the Toyota Gr86. “Instead of a review, I just wrote an open letter to my wife saying, we need to buy a Toyota Gr86 sports car,” Aaron said. “That was my review. And I said, it doesn’t matter that we don’t fit in the car, and it doesn’t hold our stuff and that the kids said they were squished. We just need to buy the car. The manufacturers liked it. Even though I said in the review the car is totally impractical, don’t actually buy the car. But everybody was happy because it was it was a lot of fun.”
For those looking to follow in Aaron’s lead, his advice is simple. “Be flexible,” he said. “Not any of this unfolded the way I had planned and that doesn’t mean it’s not exactly what I want, but you have to be very well-rounded. If an opportunity presents itself, you can’t say, ‘Oh, well, I’m not really good at this aspect of my work or this aspect.’ You have to be able to do it all. You have to be willing to step in and go outside of your comfort zone whenever you need to.”
Aaron also noted the importance of being aggressive. “Always look for opportunities,” he said. “Don’t get dismayed… You have to persevere because it is a highly competitive industry. It is not a bottomless industry. And you will rise to the top if you’re good.”
Krystina Alarcon Carroll is a news media columnist and features writer for Barrett Media. She has experience in almost every facet of the industry including: digital and print news; live, streamed, and syndicated TV; documentary and film productions. Her prior employers have included NY1 and Fox News Digital and the Law & Crime Network. You can find Krystina on X (formerly twitter) @KrystinaAlaCarr.
