Mike Baker

Mike Baker is a former covert operations officer with the Central Intelligence Agency, president and co-founder of Diligence LLC, a private intelligence and security firm, a frequent guest on the Fox News Channel, and current producer and script adviser to the entertainment industry.

"Bernie and Sid"

Bernard J. McGuirk is the executive producer of the Imus in the Morning radio program. He was born and raised in the South Bronx, New York, where he worked in his younger years as a taxi driver.

Sid Rosenberg is a radio personality and the former morning host of WMEN-640 AM.  Rosenberg is known for his controversial and sarcastic humor as a host on many radio stations including, WAXY "790 The Ticket" in Miami, where he hosted his own morning show.  He originally was paired with O.J. McDuffie, formerly a wide receiver with the Miami Dolphins; McDuffie resigned his position with the station in the summer of 2006.

Rosenberg's self-given jokingly middle name "Arthur" is a reference to former baseball player Dave Kingman. When Hall of Fame sportscaster Bob Murphy gave the lineups for the New York Mets, he would always give Kingman's name as "David Arthur Kingman"; Rosenberg continues this running gag on the Sports Guys by using Arthur as everybody's middle name.

His radio career started in West Palm Beach, Florida, where he hosted the syndicated sports radio program The Drive on Sports Fan Radio Network in the late 1990s, after starting as an Internet broadcast. In 2000, he moved to New York City to co-host WNEW-FM's turbulent morning show, the Sports Guys. A year later, he joined the Imus in the Morning program. He shared the sports broadcasting duties with Warner Wolf before becoming the full-time sports reporter. He engaged in heated half-mock, half-serious disputes with the other members of the Imus cast, leading for example to an actual boxing bout with producer Bernard McGuirk.  Several months after joining the Imus show, he became the co-host of the midday show on Imus' flagship station, WFAN. Here, his strong knowledge of sports and distinctive, high-pitched Brooklyn accent served him well. He would hold both broadcasting positions until 2005. For several years, he also hosted the radio pre-game shows for New York Giants home games.

Pete Hamill

 

Pete Hamill is an American journalist, novelist, essayist, editor and educator. He is a Distinguished Writer in Residence at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University. He lives in New York City with his wife, writer Fukiko Aoki and has two daughters Adriene and Deirdre Hamill and one grandson.  Pete Hamill was born in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn, N.Y., the first of seven children of Catholic immigrants from Belfast, Northern Ireland. His father, Billy Hamill, emigrated in 1924 and lost a leg from an injury in a semi-pro soccer game three years later in Brooklyn. Pete's mother, Anne Devlin, arrived in New York in 1929, on the day the stock market crashed. Billy and Anne met in 1933 and married in 1934. He worked as a clerk in a grocery chain, in a war plant after 1941, and after the war in a factory that made lighting fixtures. Anne, who graduated from high school in Belfast, worked in Wanamaker's department store, as a domestic (before she married), a part-time nurses' aide, and as a casher in the RKO movie chain.  Their son Peter was educated at Holy Name of Jesus grammar school and had his first newspaper job when he was 11, delivering the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. In 1949, he won a scholarship to the prestigious Regis High School in Manhattan. But he dropped out near the end of his second year and went to work as an apprentice sheet metal worker in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. (In June 2010, Regis awarded him an honorary diploma, 59 years after he dropped out).  He was then absorbed in trying to become a comic book artist, and while working in the Navy Yard, attended night classes at the School of Visual Arts (then called the Cartoonists and Illustrators School). In the fall of 1952, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy. When he was discharged a few years later, he was entitled to the G.I. Bill of Rights. In the fall of 1956, he left for a year as a student at Mexico City College, trying to become a painter. At the end of that Mexican year, he had decided to become a writer.

Journalism

 
In the summer of 1960, Hamill went to work as a reporter for the New York Post and began to learn his craft (the story is told in his 1994 memoir, A Drinking Life.) In 1962-63, a prolonged newspaper strike led him to writing magazine articles and by the fall of 1963 he was in Europe as a correspondent for the Saturday Evening Post. Based for six months in Barcelona, and five months in Dublin, he roamed Europe, interviewing actors, movie directors, novelists and ordinary citizens. He was in Belfast with his father on Nov. 22, 1963, when John F. Kennedy was assassinated, and he witnessed both sides of the sectarian quarrel mourning the fallen American president.

Hamill returned to New York in August 1964, covered the Democratic Convention in Atlantic City, and worked briefly at the New York Herald Tribune as a feature writer. In the fall of 1965, he started writing a column for the New York Post. By Christmas, he was in Vietnam. His newspaper career would go on for decades, at the Post, the New York Daily News, the Village Voice, and New York Newsday. He would serve briefly as editor of the Post, and later as editor-in-chief-of the Daily News. His longer journalistic work has appeared in New York magazine, the New Yorker, Esquire, Playboy, Rolling Stone, and other periodicals.

From the beginning, he has been a generalist, not a specialist. He has written about wars in Vietnam, Nicaragua, Lebanon and Northern Ireland. He covered the urban riots of the 1960s. He has covered local and national politics. He wrote about the New York underclass too, their hopes and ambitions, and sometimes, tragedies. But he also wrote about jazz, rock 'n' roll (winning a 1975 Grammy for Best Liner Notes for Bob Dylan's "Blood on the Tracks"), boxing, baseball, and art. At different periods (in addition to Barcelona and Dublin), he has lived in Mexico City, San Juan, P.R., Rome, Los Angeles, Santa Fe, N.M. He has always returned to New York.

Two collections of his selected journalism have been published: "Irrational Ravings" (1971) and "Piecework" (1996). He edited for Library of America two volumes of the journalism of A.J. Liebling. In 1998, he published an extended essay on journalism at the end of the 20th century called "News Is A Verb" (Ballantine).
In the summer of 1968, Hamill published his first novel, a thriller called "A Killing for Christ," about a plot to assassinate the Pope on Easter Sunday in Rome. This was followed by a short semi-autobiographical novel called "The Gift", where he first began using his Brooklyn roots in a fictional form. Most of his fiction is also set in New York City, including "Snow in August" (1997), "Forever" (2003), "North River" (2007) "Tabloid City" (2011) and "The Christmas Kid" (2012).

In addition, he has published more than 100 short stories in newspapers, following the example of fiction writers from O. Henry to Alberto Moravia. In the New York Post, the Hamill short stories were part of a series called "The Eight Million." In the Daily News, the stories ran under the title "Tales of New York."  He has published two volumes of short stories: "The Invisible City: A New York Sketchbook" (Random House. 1980) and "Tokyo Sketches" (Kodansha. 1992).

Hamill's 1994 memoir, "A Drinking Life", was a critical and commercial success. It chronicled his journey from childhood into his thirties, his embrace of drinking and the decision to abandon it. The late Frank McCourt once told him that Hamill's book encouraged him to complete his own memoir, "Angela's Ashes." Hamill's portrait of "Downtown: My Manhattan" (Little, Brown. 2004) is a combination of memoir, history, and reporting about the area of Manhattan where he has spent much of his adult life. It includes some of his own reporting on the destruction of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, at which he was present.

His passions for art and for Mexico drive his book on the muralist Diego Rivera (Abrams. 1999), a lavishly illustrated volume that explores, among other matters, the effects of ideology on Rivera's art. In "Tools as Art" (Abrams. 1995) he moves through the Hechinger Collection, exploring the idea of tools and the way artists see them (and use them). His biographical essay on the artist was featured in "Underground Together: The Art and Life of Harvey Dinnerstein" (Chronicle Books. 2008). Much of Dinnerstein's work is infused with the light of Hamill's Brooklyn, and the  people who live there, walking its streets, riding its ferries and subways.
Hamill has often said that he has learned much from photographers, and he has written often about their work. In "New York: City of Islands" (Monacelli Press. 2007), he celebrates his home city as captured by the lens of Jake Rajs. "New York Exposed: Photographs from the Daily News" (Abrams.2001) contains an extended essay about the New York Daily News and its crucial role in the story of photography in American journalism. In his introduction to "Mexico: The Revolution and Beyond" (Aperture. 2003), Hamill tells the story of  Agustin Victor Casasola, whose great photographs helped define the Revolution of 1910-1920 and the  surge towards modernity that arrived when the shooting ended. In his introduction to "A Living Lens: Photographs of Jewish Life From the Pages of the Forward" (Norton. 2007) Hamill evokes the great days of the Yiddish press. His text for "The Times Square Gym" (Evan. 1996) explores the lives of the prizefighters in John Goodman's superb photographs. His introduction to "Garden of Dreams: Madison Square Garden" (Stewart Tabori & Chang.2004) offers a context for the sports photography of George Kalinski. His own Irish heritage permeates the text for "The Irish Face in America" (Bulfinch. 2004) as seen by the photographer Jim Smith.

Hamill has also written about the effect of comics on his life (he has a collection of framed comic strip originals above his desk). Among his writings are an introduction to "Terry and the Pirates" Volume two" by Milton Caniff (Library of American Comics. 2007).  He wrote an introductory text for a new version of Al Hirschfeld's "The Speakeasies of 1932" (Glenn Young. 2003). Most recently, he contributed an introduction to "Jerry Robinson: Ambassador of Comics" (Abrams. 2010), hailing the man who helped create the modern comic book, including one the great villains: The Joker.

Don Imus

Don Imus

Imus broadcast his first program from New York City back in 1971. His life journey has by some accounts been arduous, by other accounts a freak parade, and by still others as a matter for a RICO investigation. It began out in the great American West, California and Arizona, and eventually would make its way on across the country to Ohio and New York.

Imus was born in Riverside, California. Ranching was the family business and he was actually raised on a big cattle spread called the Willows near Kingman, Arizona. Don recalls that period of his childhood fondly and his familiar cowboy persona is completely legitimate. His irascibility appears to be equally legitimate, influenced by more than a few hard knocks along the way. If he revels in the agony of others, as he jokes, it may just be because he’s had a little of that himself. His parents divorced when Don was fifteen, he changed schools frequently, got arrested after a school yard fight, won election in secondary school as class president and was impeached, and, at seventeen, was pushed by his mother to join the marine corps as the best strategy to keep him out of jail. While it all added up to what Imus himself has described as a fairly horrible adolescence, it also disproves a theory that he actually had no parents and instead spawned spontaneously in dust clots behind the Laundromat dryers where one day he would seek shelter. When did all of these events unfold? It doesn’t really matter. And why annoy Don by asking?

Despite the occasional rough patch, Imus did spend a full twelve years in public school and emerged with no formal education…a product of automatic social promotion not even casually tied to merit. He graduated with no honors and no skills, a rare stroke of luck because a broadcasting career required neither. Difficulty continued to dog Imus after his school days: his undistinguished, infraction blotched stretch in the marines, onerous labor in a Superior, Arizona copper mine and a Grand Canyon uranium mine where an accident left him with both legs broken. There was work as a freight brakeman on the Southern Pacific railroad and a back injury suffered in an engine derailment and at one point the indignities of homelessness, hitching, being flat broke. Better, and worse days were to come. This quintessential American and often challenging personal passage materially defined Imus, instilling him with humility, a deep respect for our country and its workers, and a disturbing need to get even. He emerged from the experience with attributes that contributed enormously to the broadcasting distinction he would realize: an intrinsic, conspicuous authenticity, and a unique ability to connect with real people who work hard, serve their country, and care passionately about what really matters in the world.

Once Imus began broadcasting, fame and acclaim came quickly. He was showered with the laurels of radio celebrity including inductions into both the National Association of Broadcasters and radio halls of fame. He was the recipient of four Marconi awards, broadcasting’s equivalent of Hollywood’s Oscars. It got to the point that he would throw this or that slab of walnut with crystal crap glued to it against the wall of his office as a convenient means of intimidating horrified underlings. He was featured on television programs from NBC’s “Today” show to CBS’ “60 Minutes.” He was a guest of Charlie Rose, David Letterman, and of special note, Larry King, in shameless, mutual ass-kissing marathons that challenged the audience's gag reflex.

Don and wife Deirdre will continue to run the Imus ranch for kids with cancer, raise more millions for the Tomorrows Children Fund, the CJ Foundation for SIDS, America’s veterans and their care, autism studies, environmental concerns, and all the countless other things Don does, most with notice neither assigned nor sought.

"Bo-Monday"

“Bo” Dietl was a New York City Police Officer and Detective from June 1969 until he retired in 1985.  Bo was one of the most highly decorated detectives in the history of the police department, with several thousand arrests to his credit.  There were two particular cases that represent his career highlights.  The first was what former New York City Mayor Edward I. Koch labeled “...the most vicious crime in New York City history” (1981) which involved a nun who was raped and tortured in an East Harlem convent as 27 crosses were carved into her by two men, who later confessed and were convicted.  The second was the Palm Sunday Massacre in 1984, which was one of New York City’s most bloody mass slayings, of ten people.  Bo was instrumental in the arrest and conviction of the suspects in both cases.

 

In 1986, Bo was nominated for the U.S. Congress by the Republican and Conservative parties of New York State for the 6th Congressional District (to fill the seat of the late Joseph Addabbo). In a 7-1 Democratic District, the Rev. Floyd Flake edged out Bo by a mere 2,500 votes - one of the closest races in New York history. 

 

President George Bush appointed Bo as Co-Chairman of the National Crime Commission.  Governor George E. Pataki appointed Bo Chairman of the New York State Security Guard Advisory Council.  He served as Security Consultant to the National Republican Convention and as Director of Security for the New York State Republican Convention.

 

Richard “Bo” Dietl is the Founder & Chairman of Beau Dietl & Associates. Founded in 1985, Beau Dietl & Associates has grown to become one of the premier investigative and security firms in the nation and is a full service organization providing a wide variety of investigative and security services to corporate and individual clients worldwide.

 

From Sidewalk to Cyberspace…... Bo continues to succeed by staying at the forefront of evolving corporate and security advances to ensure all new challenges are met. As Chairman of Security Solutions, Bo has amassed a team of renowned security experts to provide the highest level of professional computer network security for multi-national corporations to small business.

 

Bo Dietl is also the Founder and Chairman of a revolutionary software tool for parents called Bo Dietl’s One Tough ComputerCop.  The software was developed to significantly increase parent’s ability to protect their children from online predators. NetWolves Corp. announced they were teaming with Gateway to have the software installed on all Gateway consumer market computers.  The software has been approved by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and has been featured on America’s Most Wanted.  Bo is proud to be a principal of NetWolves, an innovator of the software system called the Fox Box. NetWolves recently inked a deal with General Electric for worldwide installation of NetWolves technology.

 

Bo is also a principle of the Voyant Corporation.  Voyant is an online vision care portal that provides consumers with a patented online vision test that diagnoses the corrective reading lenses necessary for each eye.  Using this prescription information and their digital image, customers can then shop for eyeglass frames and order finished glasses.

 

Bo has an extended reach in the Real Estate business with Steve Witkoff as his Partner in some of the finest buildings in New York.

 

Bo is also the co-author of the book “One Tough Cop”, which is a story about his life as a New York City police officer.  The movie version of “One Tough Cop” was made into a major motion picture. Bo’s latest book, entitled “Business Lunchatations”, which is a story about networking and business strategies hit stores in April 2005, ranking #5 on Amazon’s Business Best Seller List.  Since then, Bo has embraced many faceted roles in the industry such as Associate Producer for the movie “The Bone Collector” and Producer for a new movie “Table One.”  Bo has entered into the television realm of reality TV with ABC “The Runner” scheduled for a January 2002 release. 

 

Over the years Bo has taken an active interest in many charities and continues to endorse and support such charities as: The Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund, The Nation Center for Missing and Exploited Children, The Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation, United Cerebral Palsy, New York City Police & Fireman Widow & Children, CJ Foundation of SIDS, Tomorrows Children Fund, Children’s Medical Fund of NY, Hemophilia Assoc., Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Mothers Voices just to name a few.