Jim Rosica
Florida Politics’ Melissa Ross, a Jacksonville radio talk show host, will soon be a guest host for National Public Radio’s nationally syndicated “The Diane Rehm Show.”
Ross, host and producer of public radio WJCT’s “First Coast Connect” call-in show, will helm the program on Dec. 9, 10, and 11.
Rehm’s show is produced out of WAMU, a public radio station that serves the greater Washington, D.C., area.
“A contact of mine at NPR forwarded my name to WAMU early in 2015 to be potentially added to the list of fill-ins for her,” Ross said. “They listened to some (recordings) of my local shows, and then one day out of the blue in September, I got an email from WAMU’s general manager asking me to fill in.”
Rehm, a broadcasting legend, attracts more than 2.2 million listeners to her program, “which has grown from a local morning call-in show to one of public broadcasting’s most popular programs,” the NPR website says.
Her success comes despite a decades-long battle with spasmodic dysphonia, a neurological voice disorder that causes her to have strained, difficult speech.
Ross’ show has won four national awards from the Public Radio News Directors association, and was honored five out of six years beginning in 2010 as “Best Local Radio Show” by Folio Weekly’s Best Of Jax Readers Poll.
She also has won several awards from Folio Weekly as “Best Local Radio Personality.”
Ross was executive producer of “The 904: Shadow on the Sunshine State,” a documentary looking at Jacksonville’s status as Florida’s murder capital. It won the Emmy for documentaries at the 2011 Suncoast Emmy Awards.
Ross, a graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism and Communications, came to WJCT in 2009 with 20 years of experience in broadcasting in Cincinnati, Chicago, Orlando and Jacksonville.
She also was cast in the HBO film “Recount,” on the 2000 presidential election challenge, playing a reporter. She is married with two children.
