Jamie Dupree: Radio Reporter Without His Voice

Jamie Dupree

54-year-old Jamie Dupree has been a radio reporter for Cox Media for more than three decades on Capitol Hill. “The most connected man in Washington,” Sean Hannity likes to call him. But 18 months ago, in the middle of the wildest presidential race of his career, he began to have trouble.

During the primaries, his voice got scratchy, by the conventions he was off the air.

According to Politico, this past April, doctors finally diagnosed him with tongue protrusion dystonia, a neurological disorder that is so rare there are no doctors who specialize in treating it. Earlier this month, Ros-Lehtinen publicized Dupree’s plight with a touching tribute on the House floor, highlighting the cruelest of ironies: Dupree is a radio reporter without a voice.

Dupree may not be a household name in Washington, but to understand the magnitude of what’s befallen him, consider his stature around the country. In the six radio markets served by Cox—Atlanta, Orlando and Dayton among them—Dupree’s name is synonymous with politics. Congressman Doug Collins (R-GA) grew up listening to him on the radio. Another lawmaker—Dupree won’t say who—once asked for his autograph. “Jamie is like the dean around here,” said Ted Barrett, a CNN producer, who’s worked alongside Dupree for years.

Over the last year and a half—a seemingly never-ending news cycle in which no one from the President down to the lowliest pundit can stop talking—Dupree has been rendered mute. His voice, a smooth baritone that hundreds of thousands of people from Florida to the Plains of Oklahoma depended on for a straight daily dose of national civics, has disappeared. With it went Dupree’s certainty about his career, and his life, too. He could have quit, but he has simply shifted platforms, throwing himself into Facebook and Twitter and a blog he writes that appears on Cox affiliates and newspapers. At home, he has reassured his three kids—aged 8, 11 and 13—that their father is all right, despite an uncertain future. "There is no guarantee I'll get my voice back," Dupree wrote to me.

As Dupree’s voice faltered—and with no solution in sight—Cox editors discussed how to adjust their Washington coverage. They wanted Dupree’s name on the radio; he was known and trusted by listeners and surveys found that listeners still responded favorably to him even without his voice on the air. “We figured out he’s still really valuable,” Jon Sonnheim, the Cox Washington Bureau Chief told me.

In his stead, Cox TV reporters have done more radio hits and Dupree has stepped up his online presence. He’s a prodigious blogger, answers questions in chats and on Facebook and he regularly tweets Capitol Hill updates to his 145,000 followers.