Ron Corning and Miranda Suarez are teaming up for NTX Now,
coming this summer to KERA
DAVID TAFFET | Senior Staff Writer
Taffet@DallasVoice.com
KERA-FM is planning and preparing for a new talk show — NTX Now — co-hosted by Ron Corning that will be on the air sometime this summer. Although he doesn’t have a debut date, Corning said the show, which he describes as advocacy journalism, is slated to air weekdays from 9-10 a.m.
“We did a little of that on Daybreak,” he said of the new show’s advocacy direction, adding that it will be “mission driven to illuminate problems. We want to be a change agent.”
And reflecting the way KERA delivers news, he said, he and co-host Miranda Suarez will tell stories in an in-depth way.
Suarez has been with KERA for six years and has been covering Tarrant County government. She has become known for her focused coverage of the spate of deaths in the Tarrant County jail.
“We’ll bring on officials,” Corning said. “Let them answer tough questions.”
Corning first moved to Dallas in 2011 to host WFAA’s Daybreak, and, from 2020 to 2022, he co-anchored The Morning After on Channel 33. He came here from New York where he anchored ABC’s overnight World News Now and reported for Good Morning America.
Corning did early morning TV for 15 years, and, he noted, it takes some special skills to do morning TV well: “Being on your game, being quick-witted, handling breaking news, being presentable,” he explained. “People who do it well, everything else takes a back seat.”
When he left Channel 8, Corning said, he made a personal life decision to stay in Dallas and put down roots. But he started that process soon after he moved here.
“When I got here, I was neither in the closet nor out,” he said. But he emceed a number of events, like the Crystal Charity Ball and many fundraisers in the LGBTQ+ community. In the fall of 2011, he hosted LifeWalk, but he also hosted smaller functions in the bars that supported a number of nonprofits.
“I remember chuckling when I picked up the Dallas Morning News and it said, ‘openly gay anchor Ron Corning,’” he said.
In eight years as WFAA’s morning host, he emceed events for more than 250 organizations.
He said if his station was going to put up billboards and slap his face on buses, he was going to give them their money’s worth.
Corning was seen around town so much that when his first contract negotiation came up, he was given a raise and told to work less. That never really happened, and, in 2019, Corning left WFAA.
“At the time, my mother was in a nursing home in Maine,” he said. “I just wasn’t happy any longer.”
There was no shortage of job opportunities for the reporter.
“I essentially went to work with a business partner,” he said. “We set out to produce digital content for clients.” One of those clients was the Dallas Morning News.
Then he got a call from Channel 33, which wanted his podcasts on daily to talk about the pandemic. His company grew to include media trainings and handling crisis communications.
Corning said he was still doing that when the KERA opportunity came along.
“At KERA, everything is done with great intention, keeping mission in mind,” he said.
He said the interview process was the most thorough he’d ever gone through.
“I’ve always loved Think,” he said, referring to the station’s locally-produced live talk show that airs at noon. “The finished product reflects what KERA does. The executive producer, Stephen Becker, is our executive producer.”
He described NTX Now — pronounced North Texas Now — as a talk show driven by the newsroom. And although they don’t have a start date, they’re actively preparing for the show.
Corning said he and Suarez have good on-air chemistry together. That’s important for radio co-hosts, whether just having an on-air discussion between themselves or bringing in a guest.
One way they’re preparing for the show is with reports airing on KERA. Last week, Corning did a six-minute piece with guest Robert Emery, a founder and former president of the LGBTQ+ history project The Dallas Way, discussing the removal of the rainbow crosswalks in Oak Lawn.
With Suarez, Corning is co-anchoring a morning news update at 9:30 a.m. And the pair did election coverage of the March 3 primary.
They’re also already participating in pledge drives.
In an era when all federal funding for public broadcasting has been shut off and many stations are experiencing layoffs, KERA is expanding. The station just broke ground on a new headquarters and studio building on its Harry Hines Boulevard property while KERA broadcasts from the WRR studios in Fair Park.
Corning and Suarez will be a welcome addition to the station’s line up when their show premiers sometime this summer.