Monroe County School Closings on Right-Wing Hate Radio - Updated
Well, just got a call from the wife– we just got our power back, so those of you who missed me terribly over the last couple days can rejoice. In the meantime, can somebody please tell me why Monroe County Schools use WHAM-1180 for announcing school closings? I’ve spoken with several people today and yesterday who were dismayed that they had to listen to right-wing hate radio for minutes on end waiting for closing info. I realize that they also announce on FM stations, but why is WHAM the only advertised AM option?
Aside from right-wing hate radio not being for everyone, part of the right-wing schtick is to champion private schools and trash public schools. It’s all part of their campaigning against the public, common good in our society. Look at the beating the Monroe County schools have taken by the local GOP (unFAIR plan, hateful campaign literature against special needs schools, Maggie Brooks campaigning against schools, etc.) What does WHAM’s local conservative pundit Bob Lonsberry have to say about public schools?
Why would our local public schools continue to support a station, that in turn supports folks that are against them?
I’m not suggesting progressive station WROC 950 (though I’d LOVE that), but how about WXXI 1370? Not offensive to anyone, decent programming, and good radio signal:
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Not quite as good as WHAM’s signal:
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But hey, it covers all of Monroe County and then some. Anyone know who would make this decision?
[Update: Thanks to reader publius in the comments-- apparently WXXI does broadcast closings, but the note we got from our school makes no mention of it. Why? And it still doesn't answer the question of why they need to broadcast on WHAM 1180 at all.]
WXXI does broadcast this information. My wife works for the city school district and that’s where she tunes for closings.
Awesome post!
Perhaps this topic is a little over the top. WHAM has done closings for years way before it was right wing hate radio.
The problem is that the other local stations have little or no independent news gathering. The real issue is the decline of radio news coverage due to media consolidation. When stations were more local they had news coverage.That limits local news options.
Yes, the question is whether other stations have people there to put the lists together like WHAM does in the mornings, or is it pretty automated programming and few staff.
There are only two radio stations left in town with actual newsrooms. One is WHAM, the other is WXXI. Every school district in the region reports closings to both.
I don’t like WHAM’s political angle in its talk programming either. But let’s not start getting into ideological tests where things like school closing announcements are concerned. The only fair thing to do, if you’re a public school or government, is to distribute those announcements on an equal basis to all news organizations. I don’t want my bureaucracies making value judgments there!
Just a quick note from Livingston County: we can’t get anything but static from either WXXI 1370 or 950 WROC between sundown and sunup. It’s a regular source of frustration for me, and neither station would be of any use to me early in the morning trying to figure out if school is on.
So it sounds like there’s a couple issues here:
1. I think schools giving WHAM something that draws listeners makes as much sense as Dem candidates going on a FOX News debate.
2. The secretary at my kids’ school may be a right-winger
3. What would it take to get 1370 or 950 a stronger transmitter? I wish Bill O’Reilly was right and those massive payouts from George Soros were just flooding in.
You have to get 950 a stronger transmitter and more staff for the morning. Those lists are really time consuming to put together and I’m not even sure there’s a local announcer on 950 either.
Easiest thing to do is turn on 13wham TV (they are no longer owned by the same company as the WHAM radio) and keep the radio off in bad weather
[...] I’m taking this from the MetroJustice email I just got. Remember how I mentioned the local GOP’s anti-public school, pro-private school platform earlier today? Remember how we mentioned reasons to attend the COMIDA meeting coming up [...]
Are you kidding me? This is an issue? WHAM 1180AM has done/does the school closings for one reason and one reason only. It’s called, 50,000 watts of transmitter power and substantial back-up capabilities to keep them on the air through various technical difficulties. The only other consideration is school districts wanting to have a centralized information distribution method. Who in Western NY doesn’t know that when it comes the radio, 1180 AM has the strongest signal and is historically where you turn to in an emergency of some sort?
I’ve listened to them through various significant weather events and have never heard this “hate speech” you are referring to while dealing with whatever crisis was at hand. The 77′ Blizzard and 92′ Ice Storm both come to mind right away and on each occasion, the only thing that was being discussed was the various ways everyone was being impacted by the storm and where/how the situation was improving.
Glad to hear your experience was better– I’m not sure what “horrible” things our friends heard (they used the word “horrible”) but the guy we listened to as long as we could (Limbaugh or a soundalike) was going on about how to question the Iraq war was unpatriotic and loony, and how not that many Iraqis had been killed, really, so it’s all ok.
Maybe it takes a huge problem like the ice storm to interrupt the flow of regularly scheduled right-wing babble.
but, I know what whtwtrdood means - the local news staff does a pretty good job informing, and yes, I’d tune to them in a local emergency. It’s all of the programming after the morning news and before the evening news that’s the problem.
What in the world are you talking about? School closings are typically announced in the morning, starting around 6:00AM and generally done by 9:00 or so because all the schools would normally be in session by then anyways. The station doesn’t go to a syndicated national feed until after the 9:00AM news cycle.
Are you responding to me? B/c that’s what I said too.
No, btp