Jon Delano

Jon Delano is a familiar face on KDKA-TV, having been the station’s political analyst since 1994.

In September 2001 Jon joined KDKA full time as the Money & Politics Editor and this region’s only political analyst who covers national and local issues that affect hometown residents.

Jon also hosts the KDKA Sunday Business Page, a weekly public affairs program.

Jon is recognized for his ability to analyze complex issues and make them understandable to any audience. He has worked in both government and the private business world, practiced law, reported on both radio and television and has also taught at the graduate level.

Jon’s on-air work began in 1991 after fourteen years working in the US Congress. In 1994 he became the political analyst for KDKA-TV and reported from both the Republican and Democratic presidential conventions in 1996, 2000, and 2004. In 2008, he was the first TV reporter in the state to interview Barack Obama and had six interviews with him that year, along with John McCain, Hillary Clinton, and Sarah Palin.

In 2011, Jon became the first Pennsylvania television reporter to interview President Obama in the White House, which he did a second time in 2012. During the 2012 campaign, he also interviewed the First Lady Michelle Obama, Gov. Mitt Romney, Ann Romney, Cong. Paul Ryan, and Dr. Jill Biden.

Jon has also been teaching graduate students since 1995 at Carnegie Mellon University’s H. John Heinz College of Public Policy & Management.

He writes a monthly column entitled “Government Busters” for the Pittsburgh Business Times and is a contributing writer to Pittsburgh Magazine.

Jon has won numerous awards for his work.

In 2011, he won the Edward R. Morrow Award for the best “hard news” story in Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey. He also won the Small Business Journalist Champion of the Year award from the U.S. Small Business Administration, the “Good Government Award” from the Greater Pittsburgh League of Women Voters, two Golden Quill Awards, two Robert Vann awards from the Pittsburgh Black Media Federation, and the Clarity Award for the Pennsylvania Bar Association for being a lawyer who can write in plain English.

Active in his church, Jon also volunteers for several community organizations. He often moderates and facilitates seminars, candidate debates and programs, and speaks on governmental and political issues to civic, business and labor groups.

A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Haverford College and University of Pennsylvania Law School, Jon and his wife Jane and their two children live in Mt. Lebanon two blocks from where Jon grew up.