Hoppin' Hannity

Atlanta Journal-Constitution ^ | 04/29/2002 | JILL VEJNOSKA

[Pokey78]

AP Photo/StephenChernin

SEAN HANNITY

Age: 40

• Family: Wife, Jill, a former editor at Creative Loafing; daughter, Merri, 8 months; son, Patrick, 3.

• Resume: The housepainter/building contractor's impassioned calls to talk radio stations during the Iran-contra scandal led to a 40-week unpaid gig on a UC-Santa Barbara radio station in the late 1980s. Talk show on Huntsville, Ala.'s WVNN-AM in 1991-'92. Was host of "The Sean Hannity Show" on Atlanta's WGST-AM Oct. '92-Oct. '96. Co-host of Fox News' "Hannity & Colmes" since Oct. '96. Launched "The Sean Hannity Show" on WABC-AM in New York in 1997; it was syndicated Sept. 10, 2001.

• Write and wrong: Thought about writing a book for several years, and was spurred on by Sept. 11: "My thesis is ideas that were wrong before 9/11 are wrong now, but the stakes are much higher."

-- Jill Vejnoska

Related: • More TV coverage

Whirlwind of a talk-show host expands from TV and radio to upcoming book

New York -- Forty-nine minutes remain in this Tuesday night edition of his cable TV talk show, but even for Sean Hannity, there's a lot to get through: The Middle East crisis needs solving, Osama bin Laden needs finding, and fans keep waving at Hannity through the window of Fox News Channel's grotto-lit, ground floor studio on West 48th Street.

"Hannity & Colmes," the hit "when-opposites-attack" debate show co-hosted by Alan Colmes, is showing a taped interview with Senate minority leader Trent Lott. For the almost gleefully multi-tasking Hannity it's time for a trip down memory lane.

With Oliver North, no less.

"Hey Ollie!" Hannity, 40, waves to the retired Marine lieutenant colonel and upcoming guest standing in the back of the studio.

"Ollie came to Huntsville, Ala., for a book signing and I interviewed him while people were literally wrapped 'round and 'round the block," Hannity loudly recalls of their initial meeting more than a decade ago, when he was a $19,000-a-year talk radio host and North a first-time author. "Because of that he would always let me interview him. Now he makes me pay him!"

If it's hard not to laugh, it's even harder to miss the point: Once star-struck by the likes of North, Hannity now gets asked to speak at the same events as North and considers him a friend.

Hannity's fortunes have definitely improved since he was plucked 5 1/2 years ago from Atlanta radio station WGST-AM to join the new Fox News Channel. Fox is now the No. 1 cable news network, having passed the venerable CNN in viewership numbers for the first time in January.

Hannity is as much of a phenom as Fox News. "Hannity & Colmes" is the No. 3-rated program in cable news, and Fox recently signed Hannity to a multiyear deal. Terms of that contract weren't disclosed, but it's been reported that Hannity is making $10 million for his five-year deal with ABC Radio Networks. Since his three-hour weekday afternoon radio show went syndicated on Sept. 10, 170 stations have signed on, including WSB-AM, where he's heard from 6-9 weeknights.

In this day of celebrity media, a book would seem inevitable. Sure enough, coming in September: "Let Freedom Ring," large chunks of which Hannity has dictated into a tape recorder during the daily commute in his 1998 Ford Explorer from his suburban Long Island home.

Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes says Hannity's metamorphosis from college dropout and general contractor in 1987 is inspiring. It's "not that he's an American media story," Ailes says. "He's an American story."

Yet ask Hannity how he's authored it and he uncharacteristically fumbles for words. At first, the man who seems to regard such self-analytical questions with the same dread as he would sharing a lifeboat with the House Democratic leadership, mumbles something about having "gotten out of the way" while his good fortune happened.

Finally, though, he opens up. Removing his TV makeup with a couple of quick swipes in the Fox News green room, he allows, "I do work hard."

"It is the 'intensely conservative' Sean Hannity . . .!"

At 3:07 p.m., Hannity leans into the microphone and booms that greeting to his radio audience. It's the official start to his on-air workday, which will end some seven hours later when "Hannity & Colmes" ends.

Yet that's literally only the half of it, as a day spent trailing around after Hannity reveals. Twelve hours before he's on TV, he's "meeting" by phone with the rest of the "Hannity & Colmes" team at 9 a.m. By then, the married (to Jill, a former Creative Loafing editor who's helping edit his book) father of two (Patrick, 3, and Merri, 8 months) has been up for several hours, scanning the news wires and newspapers online, and watching his network's morning show, "Fox and Friends." And, he points out, "feeding my kids."

"He's got an amazing capability to work very hard and he doesn't sleep very much," says Colmes who occasionally squared off against Hannity on CNN's "Talk Back Live" in their pre-Fox days.

Hannity's days clearly come with an elasticized waistband. Most nights, he arrives home around 11:15 and works on his book until about 2 a.m. On this particular Tuesday, the Lott interview has to be taped around noon at the imposing midtown Manhattan headquarters of News Corp. (parent company of Fox News Channel and the New York Post).

"I don't see it as work," says Hannity, who got his radio start with a one-hour call-in show on a college station in Santa Barbara, where he was living and working as a general contractor. "I did it for free in California."

His work ethic remains legendary in Atlanta, where he arrived at WGST in 1992 to replace the WSB-bound Neal Boortz.

"He's got all the instincts of a news person and he applies them to his role as an entertaining talk show host," says then-WGST station manager Eric Seidel, whom Hannity still calls frequently, especially when he's driving home to Long Island at night.

"We would get up at the crack of dawn, call 50 million people, read 50 million newspapers and highlight every comment from a Democrat that sent him over the edge," former WGST producer Nancy Zintak recalls. "Then we'd point him at the mike and say 'Go.' "

He's still going on this Tuesday afternoon at WABC-AM, located in the shadow of Madison Square Garden some 15 blocks south of Fox News' headquarters.

Like most talk radio shows, Hannity's features his opinionated takes on world affairs, along with guest interviews and listener calls. On this day, he's leavened some heavy discussion of the situation in the Middle East with a serio-comic phone interview with a California man who insists we've all "screwed up" by paying our income taxes. One woman calling from Ohio insists it's Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon who's a terrorist.

"He's a general fighting a war," Hannity says, his hands flying up to his thick thatch of dark hair while his voice rises slightly. "What if [suicide bombings] happened in your town in Ohio? What would you want your leaders to do?"

After several more minutes of lively discussion, he puts the woman on hold and goes to a news and commercial break. During some of these "breaks," Hannity is a blur of activity, recording promos for affiliates and ads for products like the Turbo Groomer 2.0, a device for trimming nose hair. Most days there's also a "cut-in" from the radio studio to Fox News, where he chews over the day's events for TV viewers and maybe gets in a plug for that night's "Hannity & Colmes." During other breaks, Hannity pads into the control room to talk with his three-person crew and slip associate producer/call screenerJill Vitale $20 to order them a pizza. He owes her. Hannity likes to tweak Vitale, whom he nicknamed "Flipper" for her tatoo of the same, on-air about everything from her eating habits to her more liberal political views.

Vitale's not complaining. "It's not even like a job" working for Hannity, she says, and her Web site (www.flirtyflipper.com), which can be linked from his site, has had 8.3 million hits in a little over a year.

Back to that caller in Ohio. Or not. She's dropped off the line sometime during the break, leading Hannity to crow on air, "Let the record show we don't hang up on people!"

It wasn't always that way. Hannity readily admits to "finding my way" in his early days on radio. He was canceled after less than a year on the Santa Barbara station. And WGST's initial research said he should be canned.

"He would hang up on people and get mad, which was not going to go over so well in the genteel South," says Seidel, who ignored the recommendation, and not just because Hannity was improving decorum-wise. "He was developing a following."

Hannity says he knew he wasn't leaving radio permanently when he accepted Ailes' offer to join Fox News in fall 1996. In 1997, he started his local show on WABC, and he was named Radio & Records magazine's 2001Talk Personality of the Year. With his syndication deal now, Hannity says he has the best of both overlapping worlds.

"I'm talking about the same things on radio and TV," he says, standing in a WABC hallway before beginning his trek up Sixth Avenue to Fox News. "I'm just doing it in different ways."

"Alan who?"

That's Hannity's cackling response when asked if he misses Colmes during his radio show.

Colmes' lightning fast retort: "Does Sean have a radio show?"

It's the end of the daily 7 p.m. production meeting for "Hannity & Colmes," which today is taking place in Colmes' neat office. Right next door, Hannity's office looks like a workplace version of Spaghetti Junction at rush hour: A metal rack holding 13 men's suits is pushed up against one wall, there's a shopping bag full of dress shirts on the floor and a pile of ties on a bookcase shelf. Dozens of file folders of notes and research material are strewn behind his desk.

It's not just their offices that are a study in contrasts. Colmes says Hannity is a very aggressive debater while he himself is more relaxed on-air: "He's a fastball pitcher and I often will throw a knuckleball."

And of course, they disagree on almost every issue. While Ailes says that's the whole point of the show, to him, the fact that Hannity and Colmes genuinely like each other is why it really works.

Ailes knew he wanted Hannity for the conservative half of the equation almost from the moment he heard tapes of his WGST show. Hannity didn't have a lot of TV experience and it showed. But what Hannity did have you couldn't teach. For one thing, his clean-cut, All-American mug is made for TV.

"He's just too good-looking," Ailes mock grouses. "That hair cannot look that good." What came out of Hannity's mouth, Ailes felt, was truly what he believed "deep down in his gut." And he was likable. On and off the air.

That likability surfaces on this particular night, when, after the Lott segment and some Middle East gab, political strategist Dick Morris comes on to promote his new book and, looking at Colmes, pointedly refers to Hannity as "this character on your right."

With so much going for him, it's almost natural to wonder where Hannity is headed long-term. Zintak says she could see him doing Matt Lauer's "Today" show co-host job. Almost.

"He'd be foaming at the mouth during the cooking demonstrations," says Zintak, who thinks Hannity's too passionate about politics to give up his current gigs.

Back in the green room after "Hannity & Colmes," maybe the hardest working man in multimedia makes it clear he's quite happy where he is.

"I don't think a lot about how I got here and where I should be going," Hannity says. "I couldn't have written it better."

All he knows right now is that it's almost 11 p.m. and he's due back in the city in the morning for promo shoots. The drive makes no sense, so he'll bunk at a nearby hotel.

He's just not going there just yet. Instead, he's heading upstairs to his office for a few hours.

"I've going to do some work and wait for the New York Post to come out," he explains.

He may not be intensely conservative. But he looks intensely happy.

[ClancyJ]

Great post. That's my guy - Sean. I think I even kinda like Colmes although I hate all his views. I sorta feel sorry for the fella for some reason.

[RepubMommy]

Oooooh, methinks I've just found a new wallpaper photo.

[Texas_Jarhead]

What's with that last sentence? Did I miss something or what?

[OneVike]

I am not a lazy prson by any means, however, after reading articles like this and others about Rush, I feel very lazy.

[Dan from Michigan]

Damn. This guy's political work ethic makes it look like I do nothing.

[Dan from Michigan]

Colmes doesn't PO me like some of the others.(Bill Press)

[Dianna]

He obviously works incredibly hard, and most people would not be mega-sucessful unless they did.

But that's a lot of time away from home for a family man. Sleeping overnight in a hotel because it makes no sense to go home. I hope they can hold it all together. He's one of the good guys.

[ClancyJ]

Colmes doesn't PO me like some of the others.(Bill Press)

He does me - I've written him several times. Yet there is something about him that makes me feel sorry for him. Maybe I just can't believe a human could actually think the way he does.

[Brimack34]

I can not even watch the Hannity show because of Colmbs. All he say's well the republican's did it. Olso he never has fact's he just read's the Dem-Rats talking points.

[The Great Satan]

I admit to being a total sucker for Sean's "let not your heart be troubled" lovable Irishman schtick. He is an excellent voice for conservatism in the media.

[AdA$tra]

As a Rush listener for years, I find myself looking forward to Hannity's show. I guess I have been Hannitized.

[SMEDLEYBUTLER]

I admit to being a total sucker for Sean's "let not your heart be troubled" lovable Irishman schtick.

It's more than schtick, it's the gospel. John 14:1

[Canticle_of_Deborah]

I've noticed that too. I like Sean. He's quite a cutie. I hope it all works out for him.

Hmmm, maybe some women don't need a lot of attention and that kind of a situation is okay. Not this one though.........LOL

[The Great Satan]

[bjcintennessee]

Colmes doesn't PO me like many of the others.

Yeah, I agree. Sometimes I get the impression that Colmes is playing the straight guy to Hannity's conservative views. I have also wondered if Colmes really believed in the side he was taking, or was just keeping the debate alive. What is most unique about their show is that they sometimes agree -- which most shows would not allow since it is supposed to a pro and con debate.

[SMEDLEYBUTLER]

Hannity has explained before that he got the phrase from Scripture and recalled it from his days at the seminary high school he attended.

[Dianna]

Colmes used to have a radio show which came on right after Rush in Ct. He's a true drinker of the kool-aide.