OUI on the air

[Dib9@aol.com]

Interesting situation in Portland radio.  Pat Lamarche, who was the left wing
co-host of the morning talk show on 560 WGAN Portland, was arrested for OUI
last Friday night.  She has been very controversial since being added to the
show last summer and has gotten a lot of hate mail since her conservative
co-host Don Kroah was fired in March.  Kroah had co-hosted the morning talk
show for six years and had been with the station in various capacities for 25
years.

Lamarche resigned from the station on Tuesday, giving notice but not
mentioning the OUI incident.  Apparently, she thought she was on her way out
anyway and hoped to avoid the OUI becoming public.  The local newspaper got
hold of the story on Wednesday and had a story in Thursday's paper.  (Check
out the story at http://www.portland.com/thnews/story9.htm.)  Thursday's show
was entirely about the OUI incident.  LaMarche's admitted she made a mistake
and accepted blame.  Most of the callers were sympathetic and said she should
not leave the show.  While she admitted responsibility, the whole thing came
off as a weak attempt at damage control.  She made the usual claim of having
"only two drinks", though admitting she should not have been driving.  She
refused to take a breatherlizer test when she was pulled over.  A person that
I have talked to who was at the bar she was drinking at told me she had more
than two drinks and was visibly intoxicated when he left the bar about an
hour before she did.

LaMarche was on the air today, with no mention of her future.  According to
sources at the station, today was her last show and her resignation was
accepted effective today.  The same source says her resignation being
accepted has more to do with the station being unhappy with her and her
resignation made it easy to get rid of her.

I think the OUI would have hurt her credibility on the air.  She's not a kid.
 She's a 36 year old mother of two.  One of the biggest stories recently in
Maine was a drunk driver that killed two people on the Maine Turnpike after
the State Police did not respond to calls about his iratic driving.  Also,
Lamarche went easy on Marv Albert on Tuesday, which did not really fit with
her usual style and point of view.  Also, it would be hard for her to come
down on other public figures that get in trouble.

I will be interested in hearing how the station addresses the situation next
week.

Dan Billings
Bowdoinham, Maine
(Just for disclosure purposes: I work part time at 95.5 WXGL Topsham and a
few years back I was the producing and regular substitute host on WGAN's
morning talk show, which at the time was Kroah & Crocker.  I have not worked
at WGAN since 1993.  I do not know Pat Lamrache.)

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