Kate Archer Kent is host of “The Morning Show” on The Ideas Network. She collaborates with a core production team to create compelling and relevant conversations each weekday morning about Wisconsin news, culture, and politics. The show, airing from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m., encourages participation from callers and social media to take great conversations to new places.
Kate arrived at Wisconsin Public Radio in 2016 to take on a “pinch-hitter” role — filling in for hosts who were away. She was behind the mic for programs on both Wisconsin Public Radio’s NPR News and Classical Music Network and The Ideas Network. As part of this position, she served as interim host of “The Morning Show.” In 2018, she had a short but sweet stint as executive producer of “The Larry Meiller Show.”
She came to the Badger State via the Bayou State after a decade of hosting and reporting for Red River Radio in Shreveport, La., serving public radio listeners in the woody expanse where Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas converge. (Some call it the “Ark-La-Tex,” by the way.) She launched the station’s news division in 2006.
Kate contributed to national public radio shows like “Marketplace” and “All Things Considered.” Memorable stories include the economic repercussions of the BP oil spill, an uncertain future for a family as they coped with the closure of the Shreveport General Motors plant, and the mysterious work of a wildcatter negotiating where to drill during the Haynesville Shale natural gas boom. She even gathered the sound thundering inside an oil driller’s mission control “doghouse” as complex drilling equipment bored through the Earth’s layers.
Prior to public radio, Kate was marketing and public relations director for Louisiana Tech University. She held a similar position at Northeast Iowa Community College. She also worked in communications for hair salon firm Regis Corp., in her native Minneapolis.
Kate holds a master of journalism degree from Temple University and a B.A. in English and political science from the University of Minnesota, Morris. She had a college summer internship at ABC News “Nightline.” The experience cemented her passion for going beyond the headlines to connect with people for whom news was personal. Before attending grad school in Philadelphia, she was an International Radio and Television Society fellow, embedded with CBS News’ news-gathering service “Newspath” in New York.
Kate frequents Wisconsin’s parks with her husband and their four kids in tow. They’re confident that they’ll get to all of them … so long as there are doughnuts nearby.
