Dear Editor:
Media consolidation has brought a "Neo-Dark Age" upon our community that diminishes our safety and freedom. Impartial information will no longer be economically feasible or tolerated.
Regent Broadcasting bought into our community back in the '90s. Regent acquired two talk stations, in their acquisitions -- KRNO and KQMS. KQMS had been a local news resource for over 50 years. Their programming was news and conservative with a "Limbaugh wanna-be" in the morning. Issues were hard to discuss because of the heavy Republican "Rush shtick" of the host. KRNO was quite different.
KNRO was also a news and talk station. The real differences were that KRNO was nearly county-wide and the morning show was hosted by two local news folks. Their topics ranged from sports to local government and government in general. The listener would feel that they had learned something that they could use, while feeling good about the discourse.
Regent replaced this quality morning show with some foul-mouthed Republicans that they had found on the satellite. This left our local community with only KQMS.
Regent brought in Ray Roberts to bring order to an institution in our community that was rapidly loosing credibility. Mr. Roberts sure changed things alright! He brought a foul-minded "Red Republican" shtick, complete with censorship and impugning the intelligence of any caller that disagreed with the Republican point of view (usually after the caller had been cut off). Regent realized what Roberts was doing here, fired him, leaving Ken Murray, the former mayor of Redding, in the morning and replaced Roberts in the afternoon show with Jim Bremer and Steve Gibson.
This was a middle of the road show -- there were no partisan politics from the hosts. Finally, a show that was informative again! KQMS canceled this show, too, leaving only Murray and his diatribe.
When Mapleton Communications acquired the station, there was hope for deliverance from this "black hole of political propaganda." This hope was dashed on Dec. 2 when I read that Mapleton had fired our local folks. Now on KQMS replacing the morning news is Roberts followed by Murray.
Finally, in all fairness, "Results Radio" has no news station at all. Where are they in the scheme of things? Are they like Mapleton and Regent? Just taking our money and our community for granted? We are indeed experiencing a Neo-Dark Age! Please, somebody light a candle for freedom?!
Respectfully,
V.R. Carlton
Anderson
Scripps Interactive Newspapers Group
Comments » 1
pk5000 writes:
You are correct that Mapleton Communications does not care about this community. On their first day of ownership they fired 17 people! Some had been there more than 10 years, and in the case of Jerry Mcgee he was a founder of Redding Radio! What will they do when there is a fire or other disaster? You better hope it doesn't occur after 6pm or on a weekend. No one will be staffing the station. Don't believe me? Try calling any one of the Mapleton stations after hours. You are lucky if the voice mail answers.
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