Author Archives: Luke Ford

About Luke Ford

I teach Alexander Technique in Beverly Hills (Alexander90210.com).

The Peter Jennings Show

Peter Jennings (1938-2005) builds his authority on the suggestion that he has been somewhere you have not. He ran ABC’s Beirut bureau and covered the Middle East for years before he took the anchor chair, back when most American viewers … Continue reading

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The Tom Leykis Show

Where Dennis Prager lowers the temperature, Tom Leykis (b. 1956) raises it. The voice comes loud and fast and built for radio, a big chest tone he learned in his Top 40 disc jockey days, and he uses it to … Continue reading

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The Dennis Prager Show

Dennis Prager (b. 1948) builds his public voice around the pose of the teacher. He talks like a man at the front of a classroom who has all the time in the world. The pace runs slow. He leaves space … Continue reading

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The Michael Jackson Show On KABC Radio

Michael Jackson (1934-2022) had a voice that came out soft, warm, and unmistakably British, a London accent sanded smooth by decades in American studios. That British accent carried across several continents to millions of listeners. He never honked like Cosell … Continue reading

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The Howard Cosell Show

Howard Cosell (1918-1995) owned a voice no one could mistake for another. Nasal, honking, pressed through the nose and out the front of the face, it cut across a stadium and a living room alike. He bent it like an … Continue reading

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The Dan Rather Show

Dan Rather (b. 1931) never had the easy baritone of a Holt or the boyish lilt of a Carlson. His voice ran taut and reedy, a Texas tenor pulled tight as a fence wire. He sounded urgent even when nothing … Continue reading

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The Lester Holt Intonation

Lester Holt (b. 1959) speaks in a deep, even baritone, the kind of voice casting directors hire for trust. The pitch sits low and stays there. He does not climb, he does not spike. The register itself signals steadiness, and … Continue reading

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The Tucker Carlson Show

Tucker Carlson (b. 1969) speaks in a light tenor, a little nasal, with a boyish timbre that never fully aged. The voice sits higher than you expect from a man arguing about war and power. That mismatch works for him. … Continue reading

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The Intonation of Fox News Anchor Bret Baier

Bret Baier (b. 1970) sounds natural. While Scott Pelley performs gravity and David Muir performs urgency and heart, Baier performs neutrality, and the neutrality has its own sound such as the careful withholding of the vocal moves that would betray … Continue reading

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The Intonation of ABC News Anchor David Muir

David Muir (b. 1973) works the opposite seam from Scott Pelley, formerly of CBS News. Where Pelley flattens a sentence into an even gravity, Muir spikes it. His delivery runs on emphasis, sudden hard stresses dropped onto chosen words while … Continue reading

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