Host, Seattle's Morning News

Charlie Harger

About

I’m a journalist with more than 30 years of experience covering the stories that shape life in western Washington. I host Seattle’s Morning News on KIRO Newsradio, where I help listeners start their day informed, prepared, and sometimes even entertained.

My reporting has earned multiple national and regional awards, including several Edward R. Murrow Awards. I’ve also been named APTRA’s Radio Reporter of the Year and recognized for investigative reporting on major stories like the Boeing 737 MAX crisis and interviews with serial killer Gary Ridgway.

I specialize in making complex issues understandable, focusing on how news affects real people. I’m a fourth-generation western Washington resident and have called Auburn home for over a decade.

Before hosting, I served as News Director at KIRO, worked at KOMO for nearly two decades, and taught journalism at Green River College. I take news seriously — but believe the best reporting connects on a human level.

Expertise

  • Broadcast Journalism and Storytelling
  • Investigative and Accountability Reporting
  • Community Impact and Public Service Journalism

Experience

  • Host, Seattle’s Morning News – KIRO Newsradio 97.3 FM
  • News Director – KIRO Newsradio 97.3 FM
  • Reporter and Anchor – KOMO Newsradio
  • Broadcast Instructor – Green River College
  • Communications and Digital Media – Microsoft and tech startups

Education

B.A., Communications – Thomas Edison State University
M.S., Strategic Communication – Arkansas State University

Achievements & Awards

  • Edward R. Murrow Award – Hard News (2020)
  • Edward R. Murrow Award – Continuing Coverage (2019)
  • APTRA Award – Best Investigative Reporting (2019, 2014)
  • Edward R. Murrow Award – Best Newswriting (2015)
  • APTRA Award – Radio Reporter of the Year (2015)
  • APTRA Award – Best Spot News Coverage (2015)
  • Edward R. Murrow Award – Best Documentary (2014)
  • APTRA Award – Enterprise Coverage (2014)
  • Emmy Nomination – Investigative Journalism (2014)

Social Media Profiles

Harger: Dan Wilson gave Seattle a Game 7. The Mariners should give him back a microphone

From the low of a Seahawks loss to the bittersweet high of Rick Rizzs saying "goodbye baseball" to the low again of a shaken Dan Wilson, sitting behind a table at a press conference, confirming what the whole town saw coming: He's out as Mariners manager.
2 hours ago

Harger: Goodbye, baseball. Rick Rizzs signs off after 41 seasons with the Mariners, and Seattle loses its kindest voice

Rick Rizzs retires Sunday after 41 seasons with the Mariners. The Mariners were eliminated from playoff contention Thursday, and that's what makes this weekend so bittersweet.
3 days ago

Harger: ‘No camera has ever prevented a crime,’ says Seattle’s public safety director. 40 years of research disagrees

"We just want to be safe." That might be the simplest sentence anybody said at the Alki Community Council meeting last week.
4 days ago

Harger: Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson’s gutsy budget got buried by her office’s Bite of Seattle mess

Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson made one of the gutsiest decisions I've seen a politician with power make around here in a long time.
5 days ago

A mom meets her son every Sunday at 12th and Jackson. Nine Puget Sound mayors will hear families like hers in Kent

At least nine Puget Sound mayors will gather in Kent on Oct. 8 for a community conversation on Washington's fentanyl crisis.
6 days ago

Harger: Nearly 2 million voted to protect natural gas. Four topics on one page killed it

Nearly 2 million Washingtonians voted to protect natural gas in 2024 with Initiative 2066, and last Thursday the Washington State Supreme Court struck it down.
6 days ago

Harger: Washington needs $1.3 billion more for lawsuit payouts. That’s more than UW gets in state operating support

Washington’s lawsuit math has become unsustainable, it was worth looking at the math. It’s gotten pretty hard to ignore.
7 days ago

Harger: 3 months ago, Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson promised to clean up 12th and Jackson. I went back Monday

It's human suffering on full display. The parks of North Beacon Hill, stretching down to 12th and Jackson. People clearly in need of help, clearly in danger.
13 days ago

Harger: WA pays teachers top dollar for middling test scores. Maybe we’re grading the wrong thing

Top-tier pay. Record spending. Average results. Why Washington should offer families a real vocational track alongside the traditional college path.
14 days ago

Seattle couple filmed the Twin Towers from 50 yards away on 9/11. Their tape became key evidence in terror trials. Now they’re telling the full story

On the morning of September 11, 2001, Seattle radio host Tami Michaels and her husband Guy Rosbrook were asleep on the 35th floor of the Millennium Hilton in lower Manhattan, directly across Church Street from the World Trade Center.
17 days ago

Harger: For a year, my balcony faced the twin towers. We moved home to Seattle 41 days before they fell

August 1, 2001. I awaken. I open my eyes. And I'm thinking: today I'm moving home. Back to Seattle.
17 days ago

Harger: Conservatives cheer when I call out state overspending. Will they keep that principle now that it’s Trump?

Washington doesn't have a revenue problem. It has a spending problem. We take money from the federal government, then make state taxpayers have to pick up.
18 days ago

Harger: Two blue cities decided dealers don’t belong in recovery housing. Seattle hasn’t

I've heard from people who've lived in permanent supportive housing in Seattle. Drugs move through the building around the clock, and staff look the other way.
19 days ago

Harger: 5 things about WA’s midterms, for people who blissfully ignored politics all summer

It's the day after Labor Day, and political prognosticators will tell you this is the time to start paying a bit more attention to the upcoming elections.
20 days ago

Harger: Washington’s wildland firefighters deserve year-round jobs. Congress could make it happen

My brother spent years as a volunteer firefighter. My brother-in-law has been a professional firefighter for a long time. Then there's a special breed within that world. The wildland firefighter.
24 days ago

Harger: Seattle’s own report says 27% of traffic deaths were homeless. The city’s safety plan barely touches on it

Recently, Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson announced a new executive order aimed at making Seattle's streets safer for everyone who walks, bikes, drives, or takes transit.
25 days ago

Incoming storm could bring down tree limbs across region. And Seattle may have seen its last 80-degree day this year

A fall storm arriving in the Seattle area Wednesday afternoon could bring down tree limbs and knock out power across the Puget Sound region.
26 days ago

Harger: Katie Wilson says she’s not DSA. Fine. The DSA platform says ‘defund the police,’ and SPD’s hiring bonus just got defunded

"No WAY," I told myself. There's no way SPD, short hundreds of officers, working through a rough stretch on morale, and still a little tender from the whole "defund" era, would cut its one big recruiting tool: the hiring bonuses.
26 days ago

Harger: Somehow, three years is the full sentence for the Third and Pine shooting. Sentence served, says the state

Monday afternoon, the state sent out a notice that William Tolliver is out of prison. Sentence served. One person dead, seven others shot. He served a little more than three years for it.
27 days ago

Harger: Housing, the Bite of Seattle shooting, security cameras. Mayor Katie Wilson keeps finding new ways to postpone hard decisions

About 46,000 Seattle renter households spend more than half their income on housing. Half. Rent gets paid. Groceries get squeezed.
28 days ago

Harger: A community college radio station gave me a career, a newsroom full of colleagues, and a wife

I talk for a living, on a medium that talks about itself constantly, and I found out about National Radio Day after the show ended yesterday.
1 month ago

Harger: A 17-year-old was convicted, locked up, released, and the allegations got worse. Now what?

He's 17 years old. He's already been through the juvenile justice system for serious crimes. But we know what happened next. He eventually got out.
1 month ago

Harger: You think Brian Heywood spends big? A caregivers union in Olympia outspent him on campaigns

The union SEIU 775 likes to note that The Seattle Times once compared it to Boeing and Microsoft and called it one of Olympia's most powerful players.
1 month ago

Harger: Ordinary abundance and how the most astonishing thing about your life is no longer being astonished by it

A website called Ordinary Abundance blew up on my feed this weekend. It walks you through an ordinary modern apartment, and every ordinary object opens a quote from someone in history for whom that object was unimaginable.
1 month ago