Dori Monson: 1961–2022

Long­time right wing talk radio host Dori Mon­son died sud­den­ly this week­end after being hos­pi­tal­ized last Thurs­day fol­low­ing a car­diac arrest, his employ­er Bon­neville Seat­tle announced on its web­site today. Mon­son was sixty-one.

“The KIRO News­ra­dio fam­i­ly and Bon­neville Inter­na­tion­al Cor­po­ra­tion – along with the imme­di­ate fam­i­ly of Dori Mon­son – are deeply sad­dened to announce Dori’s sud­den pass­ing Sat­ur­day night at a Seat­tle hos­pi­tal,” the com­pa­ny wrote.

“Dori’s career in radio start­ed in 1982 at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton, and includ­ed work at KING-TV, KING Radio and at KIRO since the ear­ly 1990s.

“A man of deep faith and a fierce advo­cate for girls’ sports for more than twen­ty-five years, Dori coached Shorecrest High School to its first state girls bas­ket­ball title in 2016,” the brief announce­ment and obit­u­ary went on to say. “Despite health issues over the past few years, Dori enjoyed deep sea fish­ing with KIRO and ESPN col­leagues, and play­ing pick­le­ball with his fam­i­ly. He leaves behind a wife, three adult daugh­ters, a dog and many of his show’s loy­al listeners.”

Our team at NPI is sor­ry to hear this news.

We did­n’t agree with Dori Mon­son about hard­ly any­thing; he was­n’t a fan of our work, and we weren’t fans of his. Hav­ing spent time with Dori in his stu­dio in between seg­ments of his show a few years ago, though, I got a chance to get acquaint­ed with the per­son behind the loud, opin­ion­at­ed on-air persona.

When not in front of his micro­phone, I observed that Dori was cour­te­ous and pleas­ant. He was wel­com­ing and good-man­nered. He want­ed to ensure that while I was his guest, I was com­fort­able in the stu­dio, and hydrated.

I appre­ci­at­ed that.

That is the Dori Mon­son that I’ll be remem­ber­ing, not the Dori Mon­son who repeat­ed­ly trashed and insult­ed peo­ple on air for entertainment.

The Dori who got him­self sus­pend­ed from Bon­neville and fired by the Sea­hawks for trans­pho­bic com­ments and gave cor­rupt ini­tia­tive pro­mot­er Tim Eyman a plat­form to keep his grift going and pro­mot­ed the can­di­da­cy of mil­i­tant extrem­ist Repub­li­can Joe Kent in South­west Wash­ing­ton was not a role model.

Our team can­not cel­e­brate or hon­or Dori’s work in broad­cast­ing giv­en that we found it repug­nant and com­plete­ly at odds with the val­ues we cher­ish: empa­thy, mutu­al respon­si­bil­i­ty, inclu­sion, free­dom, and fairness.

How­ev­er, we do offer all of his fam­i­ly and friends our condolences.

They’ve lost some­one dear to them and our team knows how painful and dif­fi­cult that is from expe­ri­ence, as over the years we’ve griev­ed the death of sev­er­al board and staff mem­bers, includ­ing two who passed very suddenly.

It’s tough to unex­pect­ed­ly lose some­one you love. We hope Dori’s fam­i­ly and friends find ways to mourn that bring them peace and healing.