Wednesday, May 6, 2009

More area media cuts

The UL has a short story this morning about more media cuts in the area: ["WERZ eliminates local morning DJs"]. I never listened to WERZ but I did watch "NH Outlook" and enjoyed the program. I have met Beth Carroll a number of times and she always seemed like a straightforward person to me.

Globe update: Adam Reilly offers this take on the latest NYT offer: ["The Times Co.'s last, shittiest offer"]. I think he is right on this. The lifetime guarantee thing has to go. But, similar to it being impossible to get rid of bad teachers, it is very difficult to get rid of lazy and indifferent union newspaper people. I thought being in a union was about protecting the masses, not the few? Not at the Globe I guess.

Jay Severin [Severino] situation: I haven't had much time to post but have stated some things on Dan Kennedy's blog.
First, having listened to these hosts for many decades now, I'm not really that shocked by his comments. Maybe I have become desensitized by it or something. The whole "Mexican women bringing in VD" thing is a new angle ... maybe he has some firsthand knowledge about that, I don't know. Of course, this is the same man who stated that former gubernatorial candidate Jill Stein had a nice backside ... even though Stein is as thin as a rail and doesn't have a backside!
Severino's recent comments aren't actually that rough or offensive when you consider some of the things on the airwaves these days. And personally, I don't have a problem with Severino calling illegal aliens "criminaliens" because, well, that's what they are. It's insensitive. It's not nice. But, it isn't inaccurate.
It's kinda like calling Grace Ross a "fat lesbian," which is what DiPetro the pseudo "independent man" did. Well, OK, she is a chubby lesbian, she really isn't fat. But, that's what she is. It really didn't warrant a firing ... unless they were trying to get rid of the guy in the first place which WRKO clearly was trying to do [they later replaced him with someone who made significantly less - a young black conservative from New York - like they couldn't find any one in radio in the New England area who was out of work, I mean, any programmer would be stumbling all over them - who later turned out to be an alleged child molester ... wow, what a programming coup! After that, it's Laura Ingraham off the bird, costing nothing].
So, this is probably about money. Lots of it. Severino is rumored to be making more than $1 million. We know Howie Carr is rumored to be making "800 large" or $800k, according to comments people make about him on the air. So Jay making this much is not a surprise. But if the company is trying to get out of the contract and doesn't has a way out, all of a sudden getting wise to what the guy is saying might be the only option. But to pretend you didn't know he was making fun of illegals, the poor, or whatever, that just disingenous. I mean, the station runs promos of the guy attacking illegal aliens. Come on.
Radio programming people have always been hard people to read. You never really know what they are trying to do but with the exception of a few, I've always known them 1) to have massive egos, 2) to be completely out of touch with audiences, 3) to think they are being bold with their programming when they never take a real chance on anything, and 4) to be managers and not leaders, which is why they are constantly out of work all the time.
In closing, we shouldn't be censoring Severino, Carr, Limboob, or anyone else. But there should be a Fairness Doctrine in place that requires federally licensed television and radio broadcasting entities to offer listeners opposing views since, after all, the airwaves are owned by the people. :-)

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