Michael Howard King (born December 18, 1962) is an American commentator, columnist and Murrow Award-winning &

Emmy Award The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the year, each with their own set of rules and award categor ...

-winning television producer.

Early life and education

Born and raised in

Gary, Indiana Gary ( ) is a city in Lake County, Indiana, United States. The population was 69,093 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it Indiana's List of municipalities in Indiana, eleventh-most populous city. The city has been historical ...

, King graduated from Roosevelt High School in Gary in 1980. King attended

Howard University Howard University is a private, historically black, federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C., United States. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity" and accredited by the Mid ...

and

Purdue University Purdue University is a Public university#United States, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, United States, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded ...

and was a student journalist for the ''

Purdue Exponent The ''Purdue Exponent'' is an independent student newspaper that serves Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. It is published on Mondays and Thursdays during university semesters by the Purdue Student Publishing Foundation, and is India ...

''. His uncle Emery King was a reporter for

NBC News NBC News is the news division of the American broadcast television network NBC. The division operates under NBCUniversal Media Group, a division of NBCUniversal, which is itself a subsidiary of Comcast. The news division's various operations r ...

Career

While still a high school student, King began his first media job in August 1979 as a weekend DJ for Gary radio station WLTH. King worked at various other radio stations in

Northern Indiana Northern Indiana is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the northern third of the U.S. state of Indiana and borders the states of Illinois to the west, Michigan to the north, and Ohio to the east. Spanning the state's northe ...

and the

Washington metropolitan area The Washington metropolitan area, also referred to as the National Capital Region, Greater Washington, or locally as the DMV (short for Washington, D.C., District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia), is the metropolitan area comprising Washing ...

in the 1980s. King moved to the

Atlanta metropolitan area Metro Atlanta, designated by the United States Office of Management and Budget as the Atlanta–Sandy Springs–Roswell metropolitan statistical area, is the most populous metropolitan statistical area in the U.S. state of Georgia and the sixt ...

in 1994, becoming station manager for WIGO (later WALR), a talk radio station targeting black Atlanta listeners. At WIGO, King launched new programming in January 1995 such as ''Georgia Live'', a daily interview show distributed to seven other stations in Georgia and South Carolina. In one 1999 commentary for Project 21, King opposed lowering academic standards for

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates College athletics in the United States, student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, and Simon Fraser University, 1 in Canada. ...

student-athletes on the grounds that "the primary purpose for college was to get an education, not to act as a farm system for the NBA." Joining

CNN Interactive Cable News Network (CNN) is a multinational news organization operating, most notably, a website and a Television station, TV channel headquartered in Atlanta. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a ...

in 1997, King was part of the web development team that launched CNNSI.com, the website for

CNN Sports Illustrated CNN/Sports Illustrated (CNN/SI) was a 24-hour sports news Television network, network. Created when Time Warner merged its CNN and ''Sports Illustrated'' brands, it launched on December 12, 1996. Other news networks like ESPNews provided 30-mi ...

, later that year. At the end of the 1990s, King was a weekend morning news anchor for WGST. In September 2005, King became a producer and reporter with

WXIA-TV WXIA-TV (channel 11) is a television station in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, affiliated with NBC. It is owned by Tegna Inc. alongside MyNetworkTV affiliate WATL (channel 36). The two stations share studios at One Monroe Place on the north end ...

Atlanta. In 2021, King moved from WXIA to Atlanta television station

WUPA WUPA (channel 69), branded Atlanta 69, is an independent television station in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. The station is owned by the CBS News and Stations group and maintains studios on Northeast Expressway ( I-85) in unincorporated D ...

as a digital media strategist.

Awards and recognition

At WXIA, King was part of WXIA's news production team that won the 2011 Southeast Emmy Award for News Programming Excellence (Category 1A) and the 11Alive.com website team that won a 2015 regional RTDNA Edward R. Murrow Award for Best Website. In 2016, King won the Edward R. Murrow Award for Investigative Reporting among large market TV stations. This award was for an in-depth report on WXIA about the

American Legislative Exchange Council The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is a nonprofit organization of conservatism in the United States, conservative state legislature (United States), state legislators and private sector representatives who draft and share Model act, ...

, "Smart ALEC: The Backroom Where Laws Are Born".

Personal life

King lives in

Mableton, Georgia Mableton ( ) is a city in Cobb County, Georgia, United States. Voters of the unincorporated area of Mableton approved a referendum to incorporate on November 8, 2022, and six council members were elected on March 21, 2023, with Michael Owens (p ...

References

External links

Michael King at About.me
{{DEFAULTSORT:King, Michael 1962 births Writers from Gary, Indiana Living people Writers from Georgia (U.S. state) Purdue University alumni Howard University alumni Television producers from Georgia (U.S. state) Television producers from Indiana People from Mableton, Georgia Radio personalities from Atlanta Radio personalities from Indiana