It was a bittersweet morning for WTOP News as our longtime colleague Michelle Basch anchored her last newscast on 103.5 FM.
Her warm voice has greeted WTOP’s listeners on weekday mornings for three years, running down the morning news alongside her co-anchor John Aaron.
“I just wish everyone could see behind the scenes and see all the stuff you do in the early morning, and all the way through our shift, to just make the best news product possible,” Aaron said, while anchoring his final newscast with Basch.
As Basch exited the Glass-Enclosed Nerve Center on Friday morning, she was welcomed by a round of thunderous applause from her colleagues to celebrate her 20 years with WTOP.
“Michelle, you are such an incredibly talented person,” Senior Vice President and General Manager of WTOP Joel Oxley said. “No matter what you touched here, you nailed it, you crushed it. And our listeners are just so much better off for it. But also everybody here is so much better off for it.”
Since coming to WTOP in 2006, Basch has put her all into every position she has taken on, from reporting to anchoring to writing and podcasting.
Basch was a pioneer on that front — writing, producing and hosting one of WTOP’s very first podcasts, “Going Under: The Story of Tangier Island.”
That podcast earned her a Regional Edward R. Murrow Award for Innovation in 2019.
Prior to that, she won a National Edward R. Murrow award for a piece on the D.C. Divas.
WTOP has not named a replacement who will fill Basch’s role as a morning co-anchor.
Her mellow, soothing delivery and sharp attention to detail will be missed in the WTOP newsroom.
“You have always pushed us to be better, to strive for excellence, to never stop working at that balance and that has made us so much better as an organization,” said WTOP’s director of News and Programming, Julia Ziegler.
WTOP’s Tadiwos Abedje and Jessica Kronzer contributed to this report.
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