Anyone here remember when I was fired... [View All]

[misanthrope]

...from my job in public radio over the Reagan tribute I was ordered to give?

I was just going through the archives and looking at all the hoopla that got stirred up by that. In retrospect, it wasn't as devastating as I thought it would be at the time.

While it certainly damaged the regard in which I held our local public radio station, it allowed me to turn to my writing more. In the meanwhile, I've moved from a better position at the newspaper where I work and have won a few awards to boot. I'm hoping it will be enough to land me a similar job in a larger market in an area of the country where the political, social and meteorological climate better suits me.

And the radio station? Well, a lot has changed there and none of it good. The general manager who fired me was ousted in a very devious and political manner about a year after he did me in. The fellow who was moved into his spot seems to be far worse, too. The reports I have heard on him for the last nine months paint a picture of someone highly abusive and incompetent that can't be trusted.

The departures started within a couple of months of his take-over.

The office manager left.

The development director, who is in charge of all the fundraising, left and has yet to be replaced.

Of the ten announcers who were there, all but two have left. That also included the program director who had been there for 12 years. And everytime someone departed, management merely changed their shift to automation.

They have now moved from having a whole floor of one of the campus buildings to being tucked into a couple of rooms in the corner of another building.

From what I've seen, I can't help but wonder if the new GM worked behind the scenes the whole time to worm his way into the position he has. He is in the process of reworking the entirety of it into his image, as a repository of New Age and Smooth Jazz where computers do most of the work, where music is simply a product by which they try and grab ratings.

I remember distinctly a conversation I once had with him. He was talking about a jazz radio convention he attended and discussing a point brought up by several of the other attendees. I don't recall the particulars, but it had something to do with idealism. When I voiced sympathy a speaker he described, he told me, "See, that's the difference between you and me. You're a jazz guy that does radio and I'm a radio guy that does jazz."

I wasn't alone. Most of the other announcers were in love with the arts. They had backgrounds in classical music and other similar forms. They acted in plays, wrote, painted and were general players in the town's arts scene. That's why were all in PUBLIC radio, because there, it's supposed to be about the art form first and the industry second.

No more.

Though I miss playing my jazz for folks, I'm glad I got out of there when I did.