WBZ Florida

[Dan Strassberg]

Scott: You're missing the point. What WBZ is selling is its credibility. If
you can't believe what your hear on WBZ's newscasts, can you believe
anything you hear on the radio? WBZ's credibility is vital to advertisers.
The station commands top dollar for running spots not only because lots of
people listen but also because any advertisement that listeners hear on WBZ
carries a certain added cachet, which rubs off from the station's image as
the market's only credible audio news source on the commercial part of the
broadcast bands. Still, even the sheer number of people who listen to the
news on WBZ will decline if the news lacks credibility.

With that as backdrop, WBZ management's conscious decision to mislead the
audience about LaPierre's whereabouts seems to display very bad judgment. In
fact, where Gary broadcasts from WOULD be irrelevant IF Peter Casey et al
had not tried to conceal the location and if Casey were not now trying to
make the whole subject just go away. Casey is throwing away the baby with
the bath water. In the statements I've heard, he has shown no appreciation
for the issue of trust between the listeners and their primary news source.
Anyone who likens this situation to that of a talk-show host pretending to
be somewhere he isn't is similarly missing the point. Talk-show hosts are
entertainers, not news people.

As the folks on Channel 2's Beat the Press pointed out, WBZ could have
prevented this entire brou-ha-ha if, when LaPierre started doing it three
years ago, the station had quietly announced that he would sometimes be
working from Florida. At that time, such a revelation might have resulted in
a discussion of his ability to do the job from 1500 miles away, which in
turn would have required WBZ to give the listeners a glimpse into what goes
on behind the scenes at the station, but I doubt whether it would have
caused the same sort of discussion we are now enduring.

--
Dan Strassberg, dan.strassberg@att.net
eFax 707-215-6367

----- Original Message -----
From: Scott Fybush <scott@fybush.com>
To: <boston-radio-interest@rolinin.BostonRadio.org>
Sent: Saturday, January 17, 2004 5:32 PM
Subject: Re: WBZ Florida