King's College Radio Station Criticized

King's alum Jim Spock once had a talkshow on King's College's radio station WRKC (88.5FM), Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. But Spock was removed in 2005, because, according to him, station manager Sue Henry did not like the content of one pre-recorded show he was airing.

Spock had been airing his own talkshow in addition to the three pre-recorded shows, one of which was "Making Contact"--a liberal show similar to Democracy Now.

Spock insists that Henry, a known Republican, told him to cease his show because she didn't like the content of "Making Contact". Spock refused to continue his show without Making Contact and the King's administration backed Sue Henry.

Spock says several King's College broadcasting students had backed him but were afraid to say so. He now reports that two of the shows he once played are now broadcast by Wilkes University's radio station 90.7 WCLH.

We're not fans of "Making Contact" per se, but we are partial to alternative media (being that that's what the NuPo is). We'd frankly be interested in what a liberal like Spock had to say, given that Steve Corbett and Nancy Kman tend to be a little closed-minded and banal sometimes. A college radio station would seem like a great place for new amateur talkers to be heard. As long as said talkers were held to a code of ethics so they did not slander anyone, a talkshow at King's station should be fine. Maybe Henry thought enforcing a code of ethics would be too much of a burden for King's College to handle given its limited resources.

Anyway, we thought we'd re-post a letter to the editor that someone wrote in support of Spock (The views expressed in it are not necessarily those of the NuPo):

Dropping Radio Programming Runs Counter to Democracy

Re: “King’s sees tempest in its airwaves,” Jon Fox, Nov. 25, [2005].
There is no word to express my outrage towards Sue Henry, general manager of WRKC, the King’s College radio station, and Robert McGonigle, associate vice president for student affairs.

The fact is that both agreed to pull off the air the show “Making Contact,” a current affairs program, because they found the broadcasting of what is happening in America today to be inappropriate. The anti-war rally in Washington was real, the state of mind of the majority of Americans towards the Bush administration is real, but Ms. Henry and Mr. McGonigle feel that Jim Spak, who had been running “Making Contact,” has gone too far with extremism while he was simply running a show on what? Current affairs.

As we preach democracy all over the world, Henry and McGonigle just killed it in the King’s College radio station.

Monique Frugier
Ardmore

We found the above 2005 letter on this blog: http://www.sauvessanges.com/published7.html