Connell McShane

Connell McShane is a news correspondent for FOX Business Network and news reader on Imus In The Morning radio program.

 

Prior to joining FBN, McShane worked at Bloomberg Television where he served as a news reporter and an anchor on "Evening Edition," "On the Markets" and "Marketweek." He also broadcasted live reports from both the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and NASDAQ. Before Bloomberg Television, McShane co-anchored the syndicated morning show "The First Word" on Bloomberg Radio. McShane began his career in sports broadcasting. He served as the play-by-play voice of minor league baseball’s Pittsfield Mets during the 1998 season.

 

A graduate of Fordham University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communication and Media Studies, McShane was named a finalist in both the New York Metro Achievement in Radio Awards and the New York State Associated Press Broadcasters' Association.

"Bernie & 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.

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.

Wheeler Walker, Jr.

Wheeler Walker, Jr.  -  Bio - In a now-classic scene from the 1976 Academy Award Winning film Network, newscaster Howard Beale screams into the television camera, “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take it anymore!” Beale -- struggling with declining ratings and just learning that he was about to lose his job – decides to let loose on national television after declaring that “life is bullshit.”

But instead of getting him fired (Beale’s goal), the outburst causes a ratings spike, and Howard Beale becomes a national hero for angry and frustrated Americans.

Many have compared this scene to the career trajectory of the new king of country music, Wheeler Walker, Jr. Wheeler moved to Nashville in 2000, with dreams of Garth Brooks in his head, confident that his golden voice and poetic songs would make him an instant star. Unfortunately, as Howard Beale noted, life is bullshit.

Wheeler’s first album – the unfortunately titled “No Love For the City” (his ode to preferring country life over city living) – featured a picture of Wheeler giving a thumbs down in front of the World Trade Center. Although the album was full of hard-driving, hook-laden honky-tonk, the record was released on 9/11/01 and had to immediately be pulled from store shelves. Of course, this mishap was not Wheeler’s fault... but the next decade of missteps certainly were: sleeping with record company presidents’ wives, burning down the women’s restroom at the Grand Ole Opry, and getting dropped by label after label for refusing to censor his music.

And then, in 2015, Wheeler had his Howard Beale moment: “Who says you can’t curse on a country album?” Well, a lot of people, but fuck ‘em... so Wheeler reached out to his old Kentucky pal Sturgill Simpson for the name of a producer who would let him record his music the way he wanted to: Sturgill suggested Grammy award winner Dave Cobb, who produced Simpson’s first two albums. A friendship was born, and Wheeler emptied out his bank account, wrote a check to Cobb, and the rest is history.

To say Wheeler Walker, Jr. was mad as hell and wasn’t gonna take it anymore is an understatement. A decade of failure in country music (and life) made its way into every track of Redneck Shit. Assuming correctly that no label in Nashville would release it, Walker created his own label and distributed the album through Nashville’s Thirty Tigers.

What came next was the stuff of Nashville legend. With no songs that the FCC would even allow on US airwaves, the album debuted at #9 on the Billboard Country album charts. (Because of its filthy content, Billboard also categorized the record as a “comedy” album, which still upsets Wheeler to this day. Nevertheless, the album debuted at #1 on the Billboard Comedy Charts and ended up being the 2nd best-selling comedy album of 2016, even though Wheeler says, “This ain’t no fuckin’ comedy record... this is real life”).

Fans from across the country music spectrum flocked to Wheeler’s “don’t give a fuck” attitude. One of them – Nashville hitmaker Shane McAnally – even wrote a song with Wheeler for his follow-up.

Cut to 2017: With an army of Howard Beale-like fans, Wheeler is readying the release of his new record, Ol’ Wheeler, out into the world. In an age where the President of the United States is bragging about grabbing women by the pussy, can anyone really get mad about Wheeler bragging that he’s the “Pussy King?” (Apparently, yes).

The biggest story of Ol’ Wheeler is that everyone thought Redneck Shit was a one-note joke. But Ol’ Wheeler somehow manages to be even better than its predecessor. With more complex instrumentation – Cobb and the same backing band of session men from Redneck Shit are behind the new album – and more serious themes about life on the road and and the expectations from being Nashville’s enemy number one, Wheeler has turned his life into filthy art. As he recently acknowledged to Rollling Stone, Wheeler is confident that his new record will “grab Nashville by the pussy.”

And yes, in case you were asking, the new album is just as dirty. But so is the world around him. And as stores and websites across the globe boycott the record, it only makes Wheeler bigger. He’s bringing a hip-hop attitude to country music. One of his friends even referred to him as “Kanye Twitty.”

So sure, go ahead and ignore him. But it will only make Wheeler – and his growing army of fans – even stronger. As he sings on “Poon,” the album’s closing track, “Fuck you Music City, want that sweet and pink and pretty, gimme that poon.” Or to put it more simply, Wheeler is ready to set fire to Music Row and fuck your wife while it burns.

"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.