Josh Zepps
| Josh Zepps | |
|---|---|
| Born | Josh Szeps |
| Residence | Brooklyn, New York, United States |
| Nationality | Australian |
| Occupation | Actor, media personality, political satirist, TV show host |
| Television | Brink |
Josh Zepps (formerly Josh Szeps)[1] is an Australian media personality, political satirist, actor, and TV show host. He lives in Brooklyn, New York. He was a founding host for HuffPost Live.[2] His work has included satirical writing and presenting for Australian radio, as well as the hosting of Brink, an American TV series. He also hosts the podcast Point of Inquiry for the Center for Inquiry.
Early life and education
Josh Zepps, the son of actor Henri Szeps, changed his last name from "Szeps" to avoid pronunciation confusion.[1]
Zepps attended Fort Street High School and the University of Technology, Sydney.[3][4]
In his native Australia, he won Australia’s highest radio prize for his long-running satirical comedy sketches on Sydney radio. Later, he was anchor and correspondent on CBS News Productions' Peabody-winning Channel One News.
Zepps was married on August 16, 2014 in Concord, New Hampshire to Sean Joseph Gallerani. The couple lives in New York City.
HuffPost Live
Zepps was a founding host for HuffPost Live.[5]
Australian Idol
Zepps was the host and co-executive producer of Australian Idol Backstage, the behind-the-scenes component of the namesake television series.
Brink
Beginning in 2008, Zepps was the host and creative producer of the Science Channel's Brink, a news-style TV series which examined breakthroughs in technology and discovery.[6][7] The series ended the following year.
Voice career
Zepps was cast as the voice of "Olly the Kookaburra", one of three mascots in the Sydney Summer Olympics.[3] After leaving the university in 2000, Zepps was hired as a script assistant on BackBerner, a comedy television series.[3] He also worked in the production of 2SM and 2GB, two Australian radio stations.[3] In 2003, Zepps was hired by Mike Carlton of 2UE, a commercial radio station in Sydney, Australia. Zepps developed a radio soliloquy for 2UE called "John Howard's Diary", in which he made a weekly impersonation of the Australian Prime Minister's thoughts on the past week's events.[3] Zepps said to The Sydney Morning Herald in 2003 that "if John Howard wasn't in power, it's entirely possible my life would be going in a completely different direction".[3] After John Howard was defeated in the 2007 Australian federal election, Zepps' radio spoof became "Kevin Rudd's Diary", a satire of the new Prime Minister in the same format.[1] Zepps was the creator of Never Never Newsreel, a weekly syndicated satirical radio sketch that ran until June 2008.
WeThePeople LIVE
Josh also hosts a podcast by the name of "WeThePeople LIVE" and is available on iTunes. The description given from iTunes itself is as follows: "#WeThePeople LIVE is a high-energy, high-brow interactive panel show about the news, taped in front of a live audience that's as wise as it is drunk, and disseminated to the hungry ear holes of humankind. We take questions and comments from the crowd and from social media. At the end of the show, the audience votes for which panelist "won" the news. It doesn't matter who's right. It only matters who's popular. A podcast. A town hall debate. A discussion show for planet Earth."
References
- 1 2 3 Javes, Sue (25 February 2008). "Voices of a generation". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 1 August 2010.
- ↑ HuffPost Live; Huffington Post; 16 February 2015
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 Javes, Sue (24 June 2003). "Finding His Voices". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 1 August 2010.
- ↑ McInerney, Suzanne (5 November 2001). "UTS winners with the WOW factor". UTS Newsroom. Retrieved 1 August 2010.
- ↑ HuffPost Live; Huffington Post; 16 February 2015
- ↑ Umstead, Thomas R. (14 October 2008). "Science Channel On Brink Of International Programming Sales". Multichannel News. Retrieved 1 August 2010.
- ↑ Ward, Roger (22 January 2009). "The Science Channel's "Brink" to Feature American Defense Systems' Protective Glass Used at President Obama's Inaugural". Marketwire. Retrieved 1 August 2010.