Re: WNNW on late (Was Re: WMVU AM 900 Nashua NHon late)

[mwaters@wesleyan.edu (Martin J. Waters)]

>Dan Strassberg wrote:
>A friend of a friend knows somebody in the inspections division of the FCC.
>Reportedly, this FCC employee told this friend of a friend that since WRHC
>is owned by Cuban expatriates who live in Florida, the FCC would not touch
>the station. Every four years in the presidential election, Florida is a key
>"swing" state.
<snip>
>Therefore, according to this report, WRHC can operate any way it pleases.
>
>What amazes me is, if the Times can verify the accuracy of this accusation,
>why it hasn't brought the situation up in the newspaper. In recent years,
>the Times has tended to lean Democrat more often than Republican, but that
>hasn't stopped the Times from climbing on Clinton's case big time. The fact
>that the newspaper has said nothing perhaps indicates that the report is
>bogus. Or it could mean that the Times feels that stirring up the pot on
>this particular issue is more likely to make matters worse than improve them.

        In its programming, is WRHC one of the strident anti-Castro
stations, or is it more of just a business enterprise that happens to be
owned by Cuban expatriates? Sorry, I have trouble hearing it because of
that pesky WQEW getting in the way <g>. If WRHC is broadcasting to Cuba,
maybe the international division should handle it like the CKTY case <g>.
Or maybe, like the CIA station in Marathon, Florida, they should get off
the AM band, which is for domestic broadcasting. The Times' silence might
also be at least partially that the Times feels there would be a conflict
of interest in singling out this case, since it owns one of the stations.
It also could be what someone who pays a lot of attention to such things
has told me -- that the Times just doesn't cover radio. I just had a
brainstorm about a paper that might cover the WRHC-WQEW situation -- the
Miami Herald.
        BTW, the conversation I had about the Times doing a poor to
non-existent job of covering radio came after I had checked the Times index
and found that it never reported a single word about the WOWO-WLIB case. I
even wrote a letter a year or so ago suggesting that it ought to report on
this, as it's both a local story and a national paper-of-record type of
story about the first time a Class A station has been discontinued. I got
no response and as far as I know there's never been an article.

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