Michael Berry (radio host)

Michael Christian Berry (born November 10, 1970) is an American conservative radio talk show host based in Houston, Texas. A former member of the Houston City Council, Berry has worked as an attorney, a real estate developer, and a restaurateur.

Michael Berry
Member of the Houston City Council from the At-large #5 District
In office
January 2, 2004 – January 2, 2008
Preceded byCarroll Robinson
Succeeded byJolanda Jones
Member of the Houston City Council from the At-large #4 District
In office
January 2, 2002 – January 2, 2004
Preceded byChris Bell
Succeeded byRonald C. Green
Personal details
Born
Michael Christian Berry

(1970-11-10) November 10, 1970
Orange, Texas, U.S.
Political partyRepublican
Height6 ft 0 in (183 cm)
Spouse(s)Nandita Venkateswaran Berry
ChildrenTwo sons
ResidenceHouston, Texas
Alma materUniversity of Houston
University of Texas School of Law
University of Nottingham
OccupationTalk radio host, attorney, real estate developer

Early life

Berry was born and raised in Orange, Texas. His father was a chemical plant maintenance supervisor at DuPont, and his mother was a nursing home attendant.[1]

A student body president at the University of Houston, Berry graduated magna cum laude from Houston with a B.A. in Political Science, J.D. from the University of Texas School of Law and a M.L. in international commercial law from the University of Nottingham.[2][1]

Berry began his career as a partner at the law firm Jenkens & Gilchrist.[1] In 1997, Berry became president of residential real estate company Michael Berry Properties, later Brenham Partners.[2][1]

Political career

Berry was a three-term Houston at-large city council member and also served as Mayor Pro Tem. He was named "Councilman of the Year" by the Houston Police Officers Union. After helping Houston film director and choreographer Shawn Welling with a legal dispute involving the city council, Berry became producer on the next Welling Films production, which won acclaim from notable Houston newspapers the Houston Chronicle and the Houston Press.[3] Berry told the station, "I think that this story is so compelling that if it can generate an initial buzz, then it will take on a life of its own... The beauty of the story is it's a story of redemption."[3]

Radio career

In 2005, Berry began hosting weekend program Michael Berry's Real Estate Review on Houston radio station NewsRadio 740 KTRH.[4] The following year, Berry began hosting a weekday 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. talk show on sister station Talk Radio 950 KPRC that replaced the syndicated Glenn Beck Program.[5][6]

On April 27, 2007, Berry became operations director for the three Clear Channel Communications AM radio stations in Houston: KTRH, KPRC, and KBME "790 the Sports Animal".[7] Berry remained in that position until 2011.[8] In June 2007, Berry began hosting a 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. show on KTRH in addition to his morning KPRC show.[9] KTRH moved Berry's show to 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. in July 2007 to make room for The Sean Hannity Show and The Chris Baker Show.[10] KPRC dropped Berry's show on July 30, 2007 as part of its revamped "Radio Mojo" format that put Walton and Johnson and Mancow's Morning Madhouse in weekday mornings.[11] Berry returned to his old timeslot after KTRH canceled Baker's show in November 2007.[12] In 2010, KPRC "The 9-5-0 Radio Mojo" brought back Berry in the 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. slot, and KTRH cut Berry's 5 p.m. show back one hour in order to present all three hours of The Mark Levin Show afterwards.

From 2008 to 2010, Berry hosted a weekend show Texas Time that showcased new featured music releases and festivals in Texas.[13]

Clear Channel station in Portland, Oregon, NewsRadio 1190 KEX, began simulcasting Berry's KPRC show live in the 12 to 3 p.m. (PT) slot in April 2011.[14]

In January 2012, KPRC replaced Berry's afternoon show with a show by KTRH morning host Matt Patrick. KTRH put Berry on the 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. slot previously occupied by the last hour of Houston's Morning News and The Glenn Beck Program; KPRC took in Glenn Beck.[15] This marked the end of KEX broadcasting Berry live, as KEX's noon broadcast of Michael Berry became a delayed version of Berry's KTRH morning show.[5] Berry's afternoon show has since expanded to other markets on iHeartMedia (formerly Clear Channel) stations, primarily in the Southeast.[16]

Berry won the readers' choice award of best talk radio host from the Houston Press in 2010.[17]

Berry has been a guest host of the nationally syndicated Mark Levin Show.[5]

Controversy

Referring to the Park51 Muslim community center proposed for construction near the Ground Zero site of the September 11, 2001, attacks in New York City, Berry stated on his May 26, 2010, KPRC program that if the center were to be completed, "I hope that someone blows it up".[18] The following day, he addressed his audience, issuing a statement which said in part, "I apologize to you, my listeners, for insulting your intelligence and saying something so stupid. I do not apologize, however, for my opinion that that mosque should not be built."[19]

In 2012, Berry was accused of using slur on Twitter during First Lady Michelle Obama's speech at that year's 2012 Democratic National Convention when he tweeted that black people are shooting each other during the speech along with the hashtag "#knuckadeads," in which some people allege is a substitute for "nigga". In January 2012, KPRC broke the news that Michael Berry was a suspect in a hit-and-run accident outside gay club T.C.'s Show Bar, the television station is now airing footage of Berry inside the bar on Jan. 31, the night in question, just before the accident occurred."[20]

As Berry was set to receive the "Talk Personality of the Year" award during the 2017 iHeartRadio Music Awards, the Chicago Tribune reported on March 2, 2017 that Berry had a regular feature titled "Chicago Weekend Crime Report" that included snide remarks about Chicago homicide victims, including speculation of which body parts were shot and mockery of victims' names.[21] Nearly two weeks after that article, Berry apologized, stating: "I have to make better decisions with the words I use."[22]

In a 2015 opinion article, the Houston Press ranked Berry the "most embarrassing" Houstonian for his Park51 remarks, among other comments deemed to be racist.[23]

Personal life

Berry has been married to Nandita Venkateswaran "Nandy" Berry since 1993. They first met as students at the University of Houston when the alumni association assigned Michael to train Nandita.[1] They have two sons adopted from Ethiopia.[24][25] From 2014-2015, Nandita Berry was the 109th Secretary of State of Texas.[26]

The Houston Chronicle reported on February 16, 2012 that Berry had been accused of leaving the scene of an accident in the Montrose section of Houston at approximately 11 p.m. on January 31, 2012.[27] On his February 21 radio show, Berry named KPRC-TV in criticizing news coverage of this incident as inaccurate.[28][29] On February 23, 2012, the accuser settled the matter in exchange for a payment of $2,000.00 from Berry for damages to his car, without an acknowledgement of guilt by Berry.[30] After prosecutors were unable to contact the alleged victim, they declined to pursue charges in the case.[31]

gollark: Make a bridge whether they want it or not. If they ban it, constantly make new accounts.
gollark: Anyway, the dependencies make sense, to me; mithril is a JS framework doing VDOM and HTTP requests, remark-parse is a Markdown parser and parsing Markdown is very hard, and date-fns is a datetime handling library.
gollark: That's so niche that nobody has bothered, except possibly organizations like Google.
gollark: Decompression (for gzip anyway) is so fast that it's probably negligible.
gollark: * the dependencies

References
  1. Fleck, Tim (August 28, 2003). "Running mates". Houston Press. Archived from the original on March 25, 2005. Retrieved December 25, 2017.
  2. Gibbens, Pam (October 16, 2001). "Michael Berry is running for City Council Position at Large No. 4". Houston Chronicle. Retrieved December 25, 2017.
  3. Docudrama explores Bolivar characters KHOU 11, 2009.
  4. "Program schedule". NewsRadio 740 KTRH. Archived from the original on January 14, 2005.
  5. Kinosian, Mike (May 15, 2013). "Self-Syndication is Berry, Berry Good". Talkers. Retrieved August 9, 2013.
  6. "Program schedule". Talk Radio 950 KPRC. Archived from the original on January 10, 2006.
  7. Mack, Kristen (April 28, 2007). "Councilman takes on new role in radio". Houston Chronicle. Retrieved August 9, 2013.
  8. April 30, 2012 Facebook post
  9. "Schedule". NewsRadio 740 KTRH. Archived from the original on June 25, 2007.
  10. "Schedule". KTRH. Archived from the original on July 31, 2007.
  11. Plocek, Keith (August 1, 2007). "Now the Question Can Finally Be Answered Once and for All: Jessica Alba or Jennifer Aniston?". Spaced City. Houstonpress.com. Retrieved August 9, 2013.
  12. Barron, David (November 7, 2007). "Chris Baker's talk show canceled on KTRH and KPRC". Houston Chronicle. Retrieved August 9, 2013.
  13. https://player.fm/series/texas-time-with-michael-berry
  14. "KEX Adds FM Translator Simulcast, Michael Berry For Middays". All Access. April 4, 2011. Retrieved August 9, 2013.
  15. "Michael Berry Doubles Up At KTRH, Matt Patrick To Host On Both KTRH and KPRC". All Access. January 4, 2012. Retrieved August 9, 2013.
  16. "The Michael Berry Show". iHeartMedia. August 29, 2016. Retrieved December 25, 2017.
  17. "Best Radio Host (Talk) - 2010: Michael Berry — KTRH". Houston Press. Retrieved August 9, 2013.
  18. "KPRC's Michael Berry Under Fire For Mosque Comment". AllAccess.com. May 28, 2010. Archived from the original on March 11, 2011. Retrieved May 31, 2011.
  19. Mendoza, Moises (May 28, 2010). "Berry under fire for mosque bomb remark". Houston Chronicle. Archived from the original on May 31, 2010. Retrieved November 6, 2010.
  20. Carey, Isiah. "Radio show host Michael Berry on the hot seat ... again". KRIV Fox 26. Archived from the original on September 12, 2012. Retrieved December 25, 2017.
  21. Janssen, Kim (March 2, 2017). "Talk radio star who mocks Chicago shooting victims wins national award". Chicago Tribune. Archived from the original on March 4, 2017. Retrieved December 25, 2017.
  22. Janssen, Kim (March 14, 2017). "Talk radio star apologizes, promises to end segment mocking Chicago homicide victims". Chicago Tribune. Archived from the original on March 16, 2017. Retrieved December 25, 2017.
  23. Rouner, Jef (August 19, 2015). "The 10 Most Embarrassing Houstonians". Houston Press. Retrieved December 25, 2017.
  24. http://www.isiahfactor.com/2008/06/02/michael-berry-is-now-a-father-heres-his-new-son/
  25. https://twitter.com/michaelberrysho/status/785349425254105088
  26. "Nandita Berry sworn in as Texas Secretary of State." Retrieved January 7, 2014
  27. "Michael Berry accused in hit-and-run wreck". Houston Chronicle. February 16, 2012. Archived from the original on February 19, 2012. Retrieved December 25, 2017.
  28. Mulvaney, Erin (February 21, 2012). "Michael Berry responds to hit-and-run allegations, bashes media". Houston Chronicle. Archived from the original on February 23, 2012. Retrieved December 25, 2017.
  29. Rufca, Sarah (February 23, 2012). "Conservative talker Michael Berry says he went into gay bar for the "cold beer", claims he has never bashed gays". Culture Map Houston. Retrieved December 25, 2017.
  30. Dean, Stephen (February 23, 2012). "Former councilman pays hit-and-run victim". KPRC 2. Archived from the original on February 26, 2012. Retrieved December 25, 2017.
  31. Pinkerton, James (May 1, 2012). "Talk show host Michael Berry won't be charged in Montrose hit-and-run". Houston Chronicle. Archived from the original on May 3, 2012.
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