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Longtime broadcast newsman Richard Tucker is a staff writer and media critic formerly with The Heritage Foundation.
Tucker works with Heritage analysts and other conservative public policy advocates who appear regularly in the print and broadcast news media.
Before joining the Heritage Foundation, he spent almost eight years as a broadcast news copy editor and writer, first in CNN's Atlanta headquarters and most recently in the cable news network's Washington Bureau.
Tucker's career as a broadcast journalist began in 1992 as a photographer/editor with WBNG-TV, the CBS affiliate in Binghamton, New York. He is a 1991 graduate of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University with a bachelor's degree in broadcast journalism.
Originally from Vestal, N.Y., Tucker lives with his wife and two sons in northern Virginia.
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Rich Tucker (Dec 24, 2011)
It’s an iron law of economics: You can’t get something for nothing. And yet politicians love to promise to hand out benefits, but are often reluctant to pay for them. So... more
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Rich Tucker (Dec 18, 2011)
Back in 2006, a World War II flying ace briefly made headlines once again. Students at the University of Washington decided to shoot down the idea of a statue to honor... more
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Rich Tucker (Dec 06, 2011)
Don’t say James Madison didn’t warn us.
“A landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a moneyed interest, with many lesser interests, grow up of... more
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Rich Tucker (Nov 30, 2011)
My grandmother used to prefer margarine to butter. Whether that was because she thought it was healthier or because she preferred the flavor, we’ll never know. Clearly,... more
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Rich Tucker (Nov 21, 2011)
Netflix recently announced it had lost 800,000 subscribers in the third quarter of this year. No surprise there, really. The company effectively tried to double what it... more
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Rich Tucker (Nov 14, 2011)
Economic theory is perfectly acceptable. But in the real world, economic reality is much more important.
Yet in a recent Associated Press news story, reporter Charles... more
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Rich Tucker (Nov 08, 2011)
Money, like water, is almost impossible to contain. Hold it down someplace, it’ll bubble up someplace else. That’s why the solution to what some see as college football’s... more
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Rich Tucker (Nov 02, 2011)
When politicians head out on tour, it’s often because they need to drum up support for unpopular policies. Woodrow Wilson suffered a debilitating stroke during his tour to... more
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Rich Tucker (Sep 17, 2011)
Sometimes a politician can be on the right track, even if she doesn’t get things exactly right. “Under President Bachmann you will see gasoline come down below $2 a gallon... more
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Rich Tucker (Sep 01, 2011)
Older people almost always seem to think they had it tougher than “kids today” do. So some older folks are striking back against the privileges enjoyed by today’s young... more
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Rich Tucker (Aug 24, 2011)
Humans often assume that big changes happen so slowly we’ll have plenty of time to adjust to the new reality before we have to live in it. President Obama certainly seems to... more
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Rich Tucker (Jul 25, 2011)
In the self-declared “Little City” where I live, a sign went up recently. It says that Falls Church plans to build one of those radar signs to alert drivers if... more
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Rich Tucker (Jul 01, 2011)
With the country mired in debt ($14.3 trillion and counting), entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security running out of money and unemployment seemingly stuck... more
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Rich Tucker (Jun 16, 2011)
It's rare that a newspaper's front page news stories and its back pages -- where opinion reigns -- are in perfect symmetry. But it happened recently in the Wall Street... more
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Rich Tucker (May 26, 2011)
Maybe it really is possible to go back in time.
Recently, the rock group the Cars wrapped up a short concert tour to back their new album, one that fans waited almost 25... more
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Rich Tucker (May 17, 2011)
Just a few years ago, most homeowners were convinced that property values could only increase. So it made sense to take out second mortgages and home equity loans, even if... more
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Rich Tucker (May 07, 2011)
My grandparents had a sign on the wall: “Thank God we don’t get all the government we’re paying for.” How quaint, how very 1980s, that seems now.
These days the biggest... more
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Rich Tucker (Apr 28, 2011)
Children learn a lot in school. Maybe more than we intend to teach them.
CNN recently reported: “One Chicago public school is telling students they can either eat cafeteria... more
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Rich Tucker (Apr 07, 2011)
When we hear the cliché “You get what you pay for,” we generally assume it means that the more you pay for something, the better quality product... more
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Rich Tucker (Mar 24, 2011)
On an ancient episode of The Simpsons, Lisa sets out to write an essay about what made America great. “What would Ben Franklin say if he were alive today?” she writes. “He’d... more
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Rich Tucker (Mar 10, 2011)
According to the religious sect “Family Radio,” the world will end on May 21. That’s an awfully specific date, but it does allow believers just enough time to get their... more
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Rich Tucker (Mar 03, 2011)
In just about everything, language matters.
“We need to put the gun metaphors away and permanently,” intoned (then) MSNBC personality Keith Olbermann on Jan. 8, the night... more
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Rich Tucker (Feb 17, 2011)
If you itemize deductions, the IRS says you’ll need to wait until the end of February to file your 2010 tax return. That’s because lawmakers waited until Dec. 17 to... more
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Rich Tucker (Jan 28, 2011)
Recently the social networking site MySpace announced it was firing some 500 people -- half of its staff.
How can this be? Just six years ago, savvy billionaire Rupert... more
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Rich Tucker (Jan 14, 2011)
Since he took office some two years ago, President Barack Obama has spoken frequently about the importance of creating jobs. As well he should. Throughout his tenure our... more
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Rich Tucker (Jan 07, 2011)
Sports fans have long wondered if there’s anything as meaningless as the NHL pre-and regular seasons. Thirty teams play 82 games, but end up eliminating only about half the... more