Jersey Guys Yanked, Union Threats, 101.5 FM, Talk Radio

YANKED BY THUGS

Union Intimidation Forces NJ Talkers Off The Air






*** Bumped to the top - Update below ***


Thanks to a thuggish intimidation campaign by union officials, two New Jersey talk hosts are at least temporarily off the air.

According to several news reports in the Garden State, after New Jersey 101.5 FM talkers Craig Carton and Ray Rossi exposed a potential "ticket blitz" scheme, police union officials went nuts, making threats and revealing Carton's home address and license plate number on television news programs.

In response, Carton and Rossi cut short their radio show and went straight home, saying they needed to protect their families from harm.

The blitz was apparently to be launched by police as a protest against official scrutiny of the officer involved in Governor Corzine's recent crash, which left him badly injured.

Known as the "Jersey Guys", Carton and Rossi have apparently had past tangles with this group, according to the Trentonian:

State Troopers Fraternal Association president David Jones displayed for TV cameras the home address and license plate number of New Jersey 101.5 afternoon co-host Craig Carton.

Carton and his partner, Ray Rossi, on Wednesday discussed anonymous postings on the union's password-protected Web site threatening a ticket blitz. The posters were upset that the trooper who drove Gov. Jon S. Corzine's SUV was under scrutiny for the crash which critically injured Corzine.

The union leader denied there was a ticket-writing campaign.

Jones called Carton and Rossi "a couple of clowns.'' The union leader said the broadcast has endangered troopers because motorists were challenging officers over routine motor vehicle stops.

Carton and Rossi cut their show short Thursday, saying they were going home to protect their families.

The station issued a statement saying "this form of intimidation and extortion is reprehensible.''

The Ewing-based radio station and State Police asked the attorney general to examine whether Jones broke any privacy laws.

From the Home News Tribune:

Union head rails against "Jersey Guys," media

By JONATHAN TAMARI
GANNETT STATE BUREAU
jtamari@gannett.com

TRENTON — Angered that a popular radio show drew attention to police message board posts calling for a ticket-writing blitz, the head of the state troopers' union said the show had endangered police and showed rolling television cameras the home address and license plate number of New Jersey 101.5 FM personality Craig Carton Thursday.

In a blistering news conference, state police union leader David Jones said more motorists have been confrontational during traffic stops since Carton, and then Gannett New Jersey newspapers, publicized the chatter about stepped-up ticket writing, which anonymous posters discussed on a password-protected message board for union members.

Jones opened his news conference by holding up a paper with Carton's home information, which he held in front of him for the duration of his remarks.

"I'm going to release the names and addresses of these people and then their sponsors, and all of the car dealerships and everybody else that sponsors; that show is going to have to deal with the reality that they're putting public servants and the public in general in harm's way, and I'm going to make sure that everybody knows, until they get their act together, who these people are, where they live, what they do and how it is that they're misleading the public and creating this furor," Jones said.

He later said he wanted to show that a host of the "Jersey Guys" lives in Pennsylvania.

Jones said there is no ticket-writing campaign occurring and that the story has been stoked by a "a couple of clowns on a small radio station" and Gannett State Bureau chief Bob Ingle. He threatened to "crush" the people who leaked the anonymous posts to the media.

In this post- Imus environment, it's clearly open season on talk show hosts. Disagree with one? It's now apparently okay to make threats and intimidate their families.

What's next?


UPDATE: New York Times covers the story for their Saturday editions. Here's an excerpt:

On Thursday, the head of the troopers’ union, while speaking to reporters, disclosed the home address and license plate number of one of the two Jersey Guys and labeled the pair “clowns.”

By yesterday, the brouhaha ended up in the lap of the New Jersey State Police commander, who met separately with the radio hosts and with the union president, who is an active trooper.

And a spokesman for the state attorney general, who oversees the state police, said the office would look into Thursday’s meeting between reporters in Trenton and the union president, David Jones, when he disclosed the information about Craig Carton, who is one of a half of a team on WKXW (101.5 FM) known as the Jersey Guys.

When it was all over, Mr. Jones said in a telephone interview that he would not take any further action. “I’m not going to do anything except respect the wishes of my colonel,” he said.

In taking on the Jersey Guys, Mr. Jones chose to tangle with adversaries who seem most comfortable in the middle of a storm

Also in the story:

One poster, quoted in the news media, wrote: “We are taking an absolute beating from the public and media, and the so-called officers are doing nothing about it to protect or support us in any way. ... May 1st. Spread the word. It’s go time.”

The state police denied that the postings affected the number of traffic tickets written by their officers, countering that statistics indicated that the numbers of tickets for the last days of April and the first days of May were either steady or down.

Mr. Jones also said that broadcasting the postings caused arguments between commuters and state police officers, although a spokesman for the state police, Capt. Al Della Fave, said he had no information about such incidents.

Yesterday, Captain Della Fave and the superintendent of the state police, Col. Joseph R. Fuentes, met with the Jersey Guys and other representatives of the radio station. “It was a good exchange of views,” the captain said, without elaborating. Later, Colonel Fuentes met with Mr. Jones, who agreed to stop publicizing personal information about radio station employees, Captain Della Fave said.

Any disciplinary action against Mr. Jones could hinge on how he obtained Mr. Carton’s information.

Mr. Carton said during his broadcast yesterday that Mr. Jones could face criminal and civil charges for disclosing the host’s personal information.

ELSEWHERE: new Boston items here.


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