Re: WEVD (was WFAN New York)

["'A. Joseph Ross'" <lawyer@world.std.com>]

On Sat, 2 Aug 1997, Dan Strassberg wrote:

> I don't think WEVD was ever owned by Debs. The Debs Memorial fund was a
> creature of the Forward Association, publishers of the (then) Jewish Daily
> Forward. My understanding is that the station was named after Debs but was
> never actually owned by him. The call letters are Debs' initials. Debs was
> an early labor organizer and a Communist. It's a tribute to _something_ (or
> someone) that the calls survived the McCarthy-era witch hunts. I don't know
> whether Debs was still living by the 1950s, but it's a cinch that if he was
> and if he owned WEVD at the time, someone would have found a way to
> involuntarily strip him of the license. Debs' perfectly legal membership in
> the US Communish party, which, as far as I know, he never renounced to the
> day he died, would surely have been enough of an excuse for McCarthy and his
> sidekick Roy Cohn to find a way to lift the broadcast license.

Last week on LTAR, Donna was talking about the fact that religious
broadcasters seem to be only Christian, and that there don't seem to be
many Jewish, Muslim, and Buddhist broadcasters.  While the Forward is
hardly a religious organization, WEVD is the only station I know of owned
by an explicitly Jewish organization (As opposed to owners like Arnie
Ginsburg who just happen to be Jewish).  Are there any others?

I suspect the main reason for all the Christian broadcasters and so few
other religions is money.  I know there's a Jewish cable TV network, but
it's only on the air for a few hours on Sunday afternoon.  And the
Lubavitcher Rebbe in New York, when he was alive, used to broadcast on
cable TV from time to time.

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  A. Joseph Ross, J.D.                                          617.367.0468
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