A Utah congressman’s spokesman will soon be applying his own voice to the Salt Lake City radio airwaves.
Lee Lonsberry, communications director for soon-to-retire Rep. Rob Bishop, will take over the afternoon talk time slot, weekdays from 12:30 to 3 p.m., on KSL Newsradio in early December, the station announced.
Bishop said in July that he will retire from Congress at the end of his term in January, after 18 years in the seat.
Before Lonsberry started working in Washington as Bishop’s spokesman in 2015, he worked for nearly five years at KSL’s radio and TV divisions. For 3 1/2 years, Lonsberry was executive producer for KSL’s biggest radio star, Doug Wright.
“Lee got to see it all when he worked side-by-side with Doug,” said Kevin LaRue, KSL Newsradio’s programming director in a statement.
The station promises Lonsberry’s show will focus on news and politics, and life in Utah. KSL Newsradio airs at 1160 AM and 102.7 FM.
The afternoon slot has been filled by a string of guest hosts since July, when Jay “JayMac” McFarland surrendered the job to run for the Republican nomination for Utah’s Fourth Congressional District — trying to unseat Democrat Ben McAdams.
One of those guest hosts, Deseret News opinion page editor Boyd Matheson, saw his half-hour show “Inside Sources” expand to an hour this week. It airs Mondays through Thursdays from 11 a.m. to noon.
Lonsberry is a second-generation radio host. His father, Bob Lonsberry is a nationally recognized conservative talk-radio figure. He had shows in Salt Lake City until 2011, and maintains talk shows in upstate New York.
The elder Lonsberry made news this week when he said the term “boomer,” used to describe people born between 1946 and 1964, was as offensive as the N-word. The comment earned him much derision online and on “Late Night With Stephen Colbert.”
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