Clapprood Returning To WRKO?

For WRKO’s remaining staffers, it was hard to miss the lengthy, late-week meeting between former host Marjorie Clapprood and Empress Julie Kahn.

Just so that Clapprood’s presence would be clear to everyone, her name was placed on the welcome board inside Entercom Boston’s third floor lobby over at Shoe Central.

A big return for Clapprood would solidify Kahn’s stubborn determination to eventually convert WRKO entirely into a liberal talk station.

What slot Marjorie might take isn’t yet clear, but the midmorning slot has never been permanently filled.

The fact that Clapprood is a tired market re-tread who has performed poorly in the past apparently matters little to Kahn.

In addition, there’s a bigger issue at work: why does the Boston media market continually recycle the same boring hacks? I’ve worked all over the country and have never seen this anywhere else.

The end result is an inbred and provincial media climate which constrains public debate and works against the interests of listeners and viewers.

Clapprood represents the embodiment of this local deficiency. Who needs her?

Schilling Shaft Tied To Political Rumblings?

Could Curt Schilling’s Red Sox shaft be the result of recent speculation as to his possible political future? Today, I’ve received emails from readers wondering if there could be a connection.

In today’s Herald, the paper speculates that Curt’s age (he’s now 40) and physical condition could be at issue.

Some SaveWRKO readers, however, wonder if Schilling has upset Sox brass with recent talk of a political future, including a US Senate run against John Kerry in 2008. As you may recall, this speculation was the subject of several recent WRKO talk shows.

Considering Schilling’s GOP leanings, as opposed to John Henry’s rabid support for lefty candidates (including Kerry), it’s easy to wonder whether this could in fact be a plausible theory.

News Screw-Up Rankles WRKO Listeners

When WRKO fired its entire news department late last year, station managers were adamant that its outside traffic reporters could handle delivering local updates.

To listeners, however, the loss of Rod Fritz, Listo Fisher and the entire team has led to a severe deterioration in news quality on the station.

And today, the point was again hammered home, as WRKO apparently announced the death of Dennis Rodman, rather than former Celtics star Dennis Johnson. I’m told this actually occurred several times.

Given that many listeners and media insiders suspect the newsroom budget was cut to pay convicted felon Tom Finneran’s bloated salary, station managers are again left looking foolish by this latest blunder.

It’s Still All About Deval

As the days go by, it’s becoming more clear than ever that WRKO’s timing in hiring Deval Patrick suck-up and convicted felon Tom Finneran couldn’t have been worse.

Instead of one or two minor missteps, Patrick has flushed his political credibility down the toilet, with repeated blunders committed in record time. Have you ever seen an elected official self-destruct this quickly?

Patrick’s free-spending ways have been so out of control that he’s quickly running out of media defenders. On FOX 25′s 10pm newscast last night, he was absolutely torn to shreds. And you know what? He deserves every bit of it.

In addition, yesterday’s revelation of $10,000 spent on silk curtains for his office proved even more that Deval truly lacks good judgement.

With taxpayers outraged, talk radio is in the best possible position, with one key exception: our boy Finneran, who has foolishly established himself as a Friend Of Deval.

Let’s face it: Patrick’s election was a mistake, one taxpayers are already beginning to recognize. When will WRKO admit to its own blunder in hiring Tom Finneran?

Is This Good Radio?

It would be extremely difficult to question Howie Carr’s knowledge of the region, or his ability to build a long-term listener following.

His choice of guests, however, sometimes leaves a great deal to be desired. Topping the list of dubious regulars is Col David Hunt, who provides one head-scratching moment after another.

During Hunt’s frequent phone-ins, it’s nearly impossible to understand much of what he’s saying.

Does he speak English? With so much mumbling and rambling going on, it really isn’t clear.

During today’s segment, I made a concerted effort to decipher Hunt’s words, but again was often at a loss.

At times, he gave Mayor Menino a run for his money.

With that, my question to you is this: is Hunt a good guest, or is this simply bad radio?

Deval Patrick: God’s Gift To Talk Radio

Proving to be a dream come true for New England-based talk show hosts, Deval Patrick just can’t seem to stay out of trouble these days.

During a week where the Massachusetts Governor’s astounding arrogance was in full view, Patrick made one public misstep after another. Is he on some kind of career self-destruction crusade?

In just one week, a number of major flaps emerged:

- After revelations of state police helicopter use to avoid traffic jams fueled headlines, Patrick seemed unable to handle the resulting criticism. That’s despite the fact that it was this very issue that virtually destroyed former Acting Governor Jane Swift’s political career. Remember the 60 Minutes segment on this subject?

- A push by Patrick to increase taxes on Bay State businesses confirmed the worst fears of industry leaders at a time when other regions are already busy sucking away New England’s jobs. Does Deval really want to accelerate this already-disturbing trend?

- Later in the week, a big new controversy emerged after FOX 25, the Boston Herald and other media outlets reported that Patrick had secured an expensive new Cadillac DeVille for his daily use, while casting aside the far more modest Crown Victoria used by Mitt Romney. The timing couldn’t have been worse, given Patrick’s talk of budgetary “belt-tightening”.

Patrick would do well to follow the example of former California governor and current State Attorney General Jerry Brown, who famously insisted upon using a sad-looking Plymouth Satellite instead of the limousine service that had been standard for his predecessors.

- And topping off Patrick’s horrible week, it emerged last night that the governor has secured an expensive staff position for a key fundraiser. From the Boston Globe:

As the focus intensified on the new governor’s spending habits, the administration also found itself fielding questions about hiring a $72,000-a-year aide to handle scheduling and interview requests for Patrick’s wife, Diane, a law partner at Ropes & Gray. The new aide, Amy Gorin of Wellesley, and her husband, Norm, led the governor’s fund-raising committee.

Meanwhile, while talk show hosts around the region were having a field day watching Patrick’s political capital self-destruct before their eyes, one local station defiantly installed a pro-Deval defender.

What’s wrong with this picture?

Kissing Deval’s Rear Hurts Mass Taxpayers

For WRKO’s rapidly- eroding listenership, the timing of Finneran’s hire couldn’t have been worse. Now, with a pro-Deval insider in charge of the morning show, longtime WRKO fans have lost a key place to vent about the governor’s tax-and-spend follies.

With precision timing, Deval chose this week to make one blunder after another, from his limousine- liberal- like travel arrangements, to his new push for corporate tax hikes that would send businesses fleeing the state during already troubled times.

And with the Globe’s ultra-liberal Steve Bailey taking pains to cover for Patrick’s tax hiking plans in a slanted article published today, it’s the Globe-WRKO-Red Sox liberal media cabal in action once again. After all, Bailey is also a contributor to WRKO’s morning show and reportedly is on very good terms with Julie Kahn.

Quite an elitist clique, isn’t it?

Get a load of Bailey’s coverage, excerpted here:

Patrick eyes corporate tax changes
Would follow Romney’s path for revenues

By Steve Bailey, Globe Staff | February 16, 2007

Governor Deval L. Patrick, facing a daunting challenge as he tries to balance his first state budget, is looking hard at the same solution that his predecessor, Mitt Romney, employed in the early difficult fiscal days of his administration: declaring war on corporate ‘‘tax loopholes.’’

Two senior Patrick officials said that the administration is looking seriously at a wide range of corporate tax changes to help close what is now projected to be a $1.3 billion budget gap for the coming fiscal year, which begins July 1. One of the officials said that the tax changes could raise between $350 million and $400 million annually.

The Patrick officials, who spoke on condition they not be identified because the proposals aren’t public yet, said no final decisions have been made on which of the changes to incorporate into Patrick’s upcoming budget. The budget is due to the Legislature by the end of the month, and all the changes would require its approval.

If Patrick decides to make the tax changes a centerpiece of his new budget, it is likely to create an uproar in the state’s business community, which will consider them to be tax increases. The definition of tax loopholes is in the eye of the beholder: People trying to close them say they are addressing unx fairness, while those hurt by any changes say they are simply higher taxes.

Note the significant effort spent hiding from readers the obvious fact that these are indeed tax increases. And, as the story continues, Bailey is quick to draw parallels to unrelated tax and fee- raising actions taken several years ago by Mitt Romney.

If not for the Herald calling attention to Deval’s antics, where would we be today? Without WRKO to fight for Massachusetts taxpayers, we’re forced to look elsewhere for opposition voices.

More On Feinburg’s “Conservative” Contention

When managerial suck-up Todd Feinburg asserts that conservative programming is not under threat at WRKO, here’s what he isn’t telling you:

- Tom Finneran is a fiscal liberal, leading efforts to raise taxes and deny Bay State voters their right to cut income taxes. Worse, he’s clearly a shill for Deval Patrick, Tom Menino and the Democrat Party regime on Beacon Hill. That’s obvious to anyone who listens to the program.

- While Rush is still heard on WRKO, that’s only because a company-wide contract prevented station management from cancelling the show when they had wanted to do so.

- Though Howie Carr is locked into a contract, Empress Julie has done everything possible to undermine his syndicated show, with great success so far. By trebling fees for regional affiliates, several of his longtime stations had no choice but to drop the show.

- As for Feinburg, it’s pretty clear that he’s willing to change his on-air views based on managerial whims. As an example, his now-notorious left turn regarding Deval Patrick did not go unnoticed by WRKO listeners.

Before the election, he joined DePetro and Scotto in blasting Mr “Together We Can”, but once Kahn cracked the whip after the vote, Todd was pleading with listeners to “give him a chance”. Listeners aren’t stupid and can easily sniff out a phony.

Overall, due to these contractual restrictions, the process of watering down WRKO’s views is a long-term process. If Kahn and company had their way, however, the task would already have been completed.

Another Host Kicks Scotto

Following the dubious lead of former WRKO host John DePetro, interim midmorning talker Todd Feinburg has also apparently chosen to kick fired morning host Scott Allen Miller while he’s down.

Here’s Feinburg’s comment posted at the Human Events site:

Comment from: toddfein

its nice that you’re concerned, but you haven’t checked your facts and thus have written nonsense. While our morning show is now hosted by a moderate Democrat, he is followed by conservatives – me, Rush, Howie, Savage and Jerry Doyle. If we can bring in more audience with a decent morning show, something we haven’t had in 7 or 8 years, the conservative message will be reaching tons more people.
Thanks,
Todd Feinburg
Posted: 02/13/2007 07:16pm

Not to mention the fact that Feinburg’s view on WRKO’s programming is miles off base, we’re sorry to see him stoop to this low in order to suck up to station management.

SaveWRKO’s Surging Traffic

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Together we can stop Tommy Tune Out and Deval Patrick from continuing their on-air lovefest. Happy Valentine’s Day!