Melanie Morgan, WRKO, Mike Barnicle, Air America

SLIPPING THROUGH

Other Stories Making News This Week






While Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly were dominating headlines this week, here's what else was happening in the wacky world of talk radio:


KSFO's Melanie Morgan, increasingly a lefty target these days, returned to the line of fire with the release of her new book, American Mourning (see image link below). From CNS News:

CNN restricted an on-air discussion about a new book dealing with the Iraq war because peace activist Cindy Sheehan threatened to sue over provocative claims about her in the book, one of its co-authors claims.

"American Mourning" examines how the death of two U.S. soldiers in Iraq affected their families. One of the two is the Sheehan family.

Co-author Melanie Morgan told Cybercast News Service she was slated to appear on CNN's Headline News' "Glenn Beck" program last week and that a producer told her it would be a short segment, focusing on passing claims in the book regarding Sheehan's personal life.

Morgan said she replied: "OK, fine, what- ever," and continued on the promo- tional tour for the book, which deals with the families of Casey Sheehan of Vacaville, Calif., and Justin Johnson of Rome, Ga., friends who were killed within five days of each other in separate ambushes in Sadr City, Iraq, during April 2004.

While en route to CNN studios to tape the interview, however, Morgan received another call from the producer telling her that the segment would now deal with "everything but the sex issues."

Morgan -- who is president of the conservative organization Move America Forward -- said when she asked about the reason for the last-minute change, the producer told her it was made because of "legal issues."

At the same time, liberal blog site Crooks and Liars attacked her, here:

Morgan is the typical warmonger who believes we should "kill'em all."–vaporize every living person without regard to human life—even though Iraq never attacked us. (She's also quite comfortable with torture,) Morgan has no idea how many casualties there are in Iraq because she doesn't want to know. And by the way—I believe Korea and Vietnam ware serious wars. I gather so do the men and women who fought in them. I'm just saying…

In Boston, local investors, led by former GE honcho Jack Welch, have indicated they would seek to make a bid for the Boston Globe, currently owned by the New York Times Company.

Sound great? Sure does, except for one thing: the involvement of sloppy, unethical, plagiarist talk show host Mike Barnicle in the deal.

From the Globe:

Two of Boston's best-known businessmen -- retired General Electric Co. chief executive Jack Welch and adman Jack Connors -- are quietly exploring the possibility of making an offer to buy The Boston Globe from The New York Times Co.

While neither Welch nor Connors would comment, several executives who have participated in the discussions caution the plans are preliminary. But the executives are working with the investment bank JPMorgan Chase & Co. to analyze a potential deal. They say JPMorgan has valued the Globe at $550 million to $600 million, well below the $1.1 billion the Times Co. paid in 1993.

Times Co. has said repeatedly that the Globe, despite its continued poor financial results, is not for sale.

In a statement yesterday, Catherine Mathis, Times Co. vice president of corporate communications, said, "It is our policy not to comment on potential acquisitions or divestitures. We constantly review our portfolio of properties to assess their continuing relevance to our strategy. We view the Globe as an important asset, and we have taken many steps that we believe will improve its performance," most recently naming a new publisher, P. Steven Ainsley, who previously headed the company's regional newspapers.

Hey, anything's better than continued NYT ownership of the Globe, but Barnicle's presence immediately puts a cloud over the whole deal. Why would they let Mike destroy their credibility?


Also in the Hub, a hard- hitting investigation by the Boston Phoenix revealed that WRKO's talk hosts are (gasp) supporting a Republican for governor! Next week, they'll shock us again by counting all of the pro- Deval Patrick coverage in the Globe.


Elsewhere, the Fresno Bee was kind enough to remind us that Air America is still broadcasting:

Air America doesn't want fans to worry. Those involved with producing the liberal talk programming distributed under the Air America Radio banner have a business plan they think will work.

The plan is for the talk to continue despite the company filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Oct. 13.

"I believe the company has turned the corner in regards to the problems we have had in the past," says Scott Elberg just a week after being named chief executive officer of Air America Radio.

Air America is heard locally on KFPT, AM 790.

A Chapter 11 bankruptcy gives a company protection from creditors while it is being reorganized.

And in other Air America news, the New York Post revealed that an earlier tip on the now- infamous Gloria Wise scandal was "fumbled" by the city.

In addition, a Washington Times Op-Ed column documented a point we've made many times in the past:

When is a campaign donation not a campaign donation? Apparently if you spend the money to run a radio program instead of paying for campaign ads that run on that same program. Just look at Air America. With $41 million in losses since 2004, and $9.8 million owed just to Robert Glaser, RealNetworks chairman, Democrats who bankrolled this "company" weren't so much investors as campaign contributors.

The losses are seen as simple business ineptitude, but Air America effectively, and perhaps intentionally, cleverly avoided the campaign finance limits which Democrats had worked so hard to pass.

With McCain-Feingold's "hard money" donation limits of $2,000 per candidate and "soft money" limits to party campaign committees of $57,500, there is no way that Mr. Glaser or other wealthy Democratic donors could have legally given such large sums directly to Democrats. But Air America provided a vehicle for their multimillion-dollar political campaigns.

Take Al Franken's show last Friday, the very day the network was declaring bankruptcy. The program devoted two-and-a-half hours to "Meet the Democrats," where five U.S. House and Senate candidates explained why they were the people for the job. Two-and-a-half hours straight of candidates talking is hardly stirring radio, but it is the Democrats' version of religious radio. Hardly meant to make a profit, but there to inspire the troops. After all, when the network started in 2004, Al Franken announced that: "I'm doing this because I want to use my energies to get Bush unelected."

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AAR Scandal: Darleen Click