George T. Knapp (born April 18, 1953) is an American television

investigative journalist Investigative journalism is a form of journalism in which reporters deeply investigate a single topic of interest, such as serious crimes, political corruption, or corporate wrongdoing. An investigative journalist may spend months or years rese ...

, news anchor, conspiracy theorist, and

talk radio Talk radio is a radio format containing discussion about topical issues and consisting entirely or almost entirely of original spoken word content rather than outside music. Most shows are regularly hosted by a single individual, and often featu ...

host. Knapp's earlier work has been recognized with Edward R. Murrow Awards, Peabody Awards, and 24 Pacific Southwest Regional Emmy Awards. A longtime fixture in

Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...

media, he works at

KLAS-TV KLAS-TV (channel 8) is a television station in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States, affiliated with CBS and owned by Nexstar Media Group. The station's studios are located on Channel 8 Drive near the northern portion of the Las Vegas Strip in the ...

George Knapp, I-Team Reporter
/ref> and is also a frequent host of the Sunday night/Monday morning ''

Coast To Coast AM ''Coast to Coast AM'' is an American late-night radio talk show that deals with a variety of topics. Most frequently the topics relate to either the paranormal or conspiracy theories. It was hosted by creator Art Bell from its inception in 1 ...

'' syndicated radio show. He is known for his work investigating

UFO An unidentified flying object (UFO), more recently renamed by US officials as a UAP (unidentified aerial phenomenon), is any perceived aerial phenomenon that cannot be immediately identified or explained. On investigation, most UFOs are id ...

claims which are a frequent topic of the ''Coast to Coast'' show. George Knapp hosts ''Coast to Coast AM'' on the third and fourth Sundays of the month and sometimes the fifth Sunday.

Early life

Born in Woodbury,

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

, Knapp grew up in Northern California and graduated from Franklin High School in Stockton, where he was the senior class president. He earned a bachelor's degree in communication from the

University of West Georgia The University of West Georgia is a public university in Carrollton, Georgia. The university offers a satellite campus in Newnan, Georgia, select classes at its Douglasville Center, and off-campus Museum Studies classes at the Atlanta History Ce ...

and a master's degree in the same field from the University of the Pacific. He taught

debate Debate is a process that involves formal discourse on a particular topic, often including a moderator and audience. In a debate, arguments are put forward for often opposing viewpoints. Debates have historically occurred in public meetings, a ...

and

forensics Forensic science, also known as criminalistics, is the application of science to criminal and civil laws, mainly—on the criminal side—during criminal investigation, as governed by the legal standards of admissible evidence and crimina ...

at both the University of the Pacific and

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

.2008 Interview with George Knapp
He moved to Las Vegas in the early 1980s, working first as a

cab driver "Cab Driver" is a song written by Carson Parks and performed by The Mills Brothers featuring Sy Oliver, Sy Oliver and His Orchestra. It reached #3 on the Adult Contemporary (chart), Easy Listening chart, #21 on the ''Cashbox (magazine), Cashbo ...

before being hired as an intern and then a news reporter at a

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...

station. From there, Knapp was hired as a reporter and news anchor for KLAS.

Career

Knapp reported on the story of

Bob Lazar Robert Scott Lazar (; born January 26, 1959) is an American conspiracy theorist and self-proclaimed physicist who claims he was hired in the late 1980s to reverse-engineer extraterrestrial technology. This work supposedly occurred at a secret ...

, who claimed to have worked on extraterrestrial UFOs at the secretive

Area 51 Area 51 is the common name of a highly classified United States Air Force (USAF) facility within the Nevada Test and Training Range. A remote detachment administered by Edwards Air Force Base, the facility is officially called Homey Airport ...

. According to Knapp, his discovery of evidence corroborating some of Lazar's claims made his stories on Lazar be taken more seriously than typical UFO fare. In 1990, Knapp's stories on Lazar earned an "Individual Achievement by a Journalist" award from the

United Press International United Press International (UPI) is an American international news agency whose newswires, photo, news film, and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations for most of the 20th ...

. However, to Knapp's "eternal shame," he also during this era publicized the claims of conspiracy theorist Bill Cooper, whom Knapp came to regard as far less credible than Lazar. In 1991, Knapp left KLAS to work for Altamira Communications, a public relations firm whose clients included advocates of the

Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository The Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository, as designated by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act amendments of 1987, is a proposed deep geological repository storage facility within Yucca Mountain for spent nuclear fuel and other high-level radio ...

north of Las Vegas. Knapp was rehired by KLAS-TV in the mid 1990s when he left the public relations firm. He wrote a regular column titled "Knappster" for the now-defunct alternative newsweeklies ''

Las Vegas Mercury ''Las Vegas Mercury'' was an alternative newspaper published in Las Vegas, Nevada from January 4, 2001 to March 15, 2005. The paper folded when Stephens Media purchased '' Las Vegas CityLife'' and combined the two newspapers. Columnists * James ...

'' and ''

Las Vegas CityLife ''Las Vegas CityLife'', founded in August 1996, was the oldest alternative weekly newspaper in Southern Nevada and covered news about the Las Vegas Valley and surrounding areas. Coverage included news, politics, arts, and culture reporting in prin ...

''. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Knapp worked with the now-defunct group National Institute of Discovery Science (NIDS). Founded by Las Vegas businessman

Robert Bigelow Robert Thomas Bigelow (born May 12, 1944) is an American businessman. He owns the hotel chain Budget Suites of America and is the founder of Bigelow Aerospace. In 2011, ''Forbes'' estimated his net worth to be $700 million. Bigelow has provi ...

, NIDS was charged with scientifically studying unusual phenomena with scientists and funding. Based on his work with NIDS and biochemist

Colm Kelleher UBS Group AG is a multinational Investment banking, investment bank and financial services company founded and based in Switzerland. Co-headquartered in the cities of Zürich and Basel, it maintains a presence in all major financial centres ...

, Knapp publicized the so-called

Skinwalker Ranch Skinwalker Ranch, also known as Sherman Ranch, is a property of approximately , located southeast of Ballard, Utah, that is reputed to be the site of paranormal and UFO-related activities. Its name is taken from the skin-walker of Navajo legen ...

in northeast

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...

, where strange events are alleged to have occurred.Kelleher, Colm & Knapp, George: ''Hunt for the Skinwalker: Science Confronts the Unexplained at a Remote Ranch in Utah'' (Paraview Pocket Books, 2005 )Path of the Skinwalker
George Knapp, 28 November 2002

Awards

In 2004, Knapp won a national Edward R. Murrow Award for a story about

vote fraud Electoral fraud, sometimes referred to as election manipulation, voter fraud or vote rigging, involves illegal interference with the process of an election, either by increasing the vote share of a favored candidate, depressing the vote share of ...

Clark County, Nevada Clark County is located in the U.S. state of Nevada. As of the 2020 census, the population was 2,265,461. Most of the county population resides in the Las Vegas Census County Divisions, which hold 1,771,945 people as of the 2010 Census, across ...

. He has also won dozens of Pacific Southwest Regional Emmy Awards, and several writing awards from the

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. newspa ...

. Knapp and photojournalist Matt Adams were recognized for their work on the investigative series ''Crossfire: Water, Power, and Politics'' that received a 2008

Peabody Award The George Foster Peabody Awards (or simply Peabody Awards or the Peabodys) program, named for the American businessman and philanthropist George Peabody, honor the most powerful, enlightening, and invigorating stories in television, radio, and ...

Animal welfare

Knapp has been concerned with

animal welfare Animal welfare is the well-being of non-human animals. Formal standards of animal welfare vary between contexts, but are debated mostly by animal welfare groups, legislators, and academics. Animal welfare science uses measures such as longevity ...

since the beginning of his journalism career. Since hosting occasionally with ''Coast to Coast AM'', he hosts an annual animal welfare broadcast concerning issues, the development of law,

animal cruelty Cruelty to animals, also called animal abuse, animal neglect or animal cruelty, is the infliction by omission (neglect) or by commission by humans of suffering or Injury, harm upon non-human animals. More narrowly, it can be the causing of harm ...

and remediation efforts. The 2016 broadcast covered various issues including horses and

trophy hunting Trophy hunting is a form of hunting for sport in which parts of the hunted wild animals are kept and displayed as trophies. The animal being targeted, known as the "game", is typically a mature male specimen from a popular species of collectable ...

, noting the almost one year anniversary since the

killing of Cecil the lion Cecil ( 2002 – 2 July 2015) was a male African lion who lived primarily in the Hwange National Park in Matabeleland North, Zimbabwe. He was being studied and tracked by a research team of the University of Oxford as part of a long-term stud ...

and the effect the incident was still causing at the date of the show.''Coast to Coast AM'' evening broadcast, 18 June 2016.

References

External links

*
Profile
at

Coast to Coast AM ''Coast to Coast AM'' is an American late-night radio talk show that deals with a variety of topics. Most frequently the topics relate to either the paranormal or conspiracy theories. It was hosted by creator Art Bell from its inception in 19 ...

George Knapp, TV Newsman, First Publicized Bob Lazar

by

Chuck Harder i.e. America Radio Network was a Detroit-based radio network consisting primarily of liberal talk and lifestyle talk shows, shows. They were owned by the United Auto Workers (UAW) and broadcast nationally from 1996 in radio, 1996 to 2004 in radio, ...

Mystery Wire
{{DEFAULTSORT:Knapp, George 1953 births Living people American male journalists American talk radio hosts American television reporters and correspondents American UFO writers Coast to Coast AM Emmy Award winners Journalists from New Jersey Journalists from Las Vegas Nevada Democrats Peabody Award winners People from Woodbury, New Jersey Television anchors from Las Vegas Ufologists University of the Pacific (United States) alumni University of West Georgia alumni