Mike Barnicle on WBUR?
posted by
1970s Abraham Lincoln
posted
3/29/2008 11:17:35 AM
In a departure from its 58-year history of broadcasting excellence, local NPR station WBUR is
rumored to be courting Fitchburg native Mike Barnicle, perhaps most recently remembered by locals for singing a funeral dirge his closing remarks in Chronicle's hit piece feature on the city. Quoth WBUR general manager Paul La Camera, "Mike has a remarkable gift and I continue to believe his voice is missed in Boston."
There's long been a visible struggle at WBUR between those who feel that quality programming attracts listeners (and by extension, contributors), and those who would make Daniel Schorr and Jack Beatty fight tigers in a Malaysian pay-per-view cagematch if they thought it would turn a buck*.
Former "The Connection" host Christopher Lydon exposed these internal tensions in his struggle to retain control of his own show, and many were outraged when station administrators not only continued a pledge drive during the opening invasion of the Iraq war in 2003, but actually tried to raise funds using the urgency of those events. Still, despite these and other missteps, WBUR continues to be among the best news stations in the country. So it's a terrible shame, but not a mystery that the general manager - the chief fund-raiser - wants Mike Barnicle. It's the same reason that PBS stations play boomer concerts during pledge drives instead of Nova or Frontline. Barnicle, like The Rolling Stones: Rock n' Roll Circus or John Tesh Live at Red Rocks, is money in the bank for a Boston audience.
*For the record, my money's on Beatty, although Schorr is a wily old man
rumored to have once bitten then-House Minority Leader Gerald
Ford on the hand when Ford attempted to cheat in backgammon. Ford
later apologized, and the two secretly exchanged Christmas cards until
Ford's tragic parasailing accident in 2002**.
**Ford was outlived by his identical twin brother Carl, who continued to fulfill his brother's ex-Presidential obligations until his own death in 2006. Carl knew nothing of his brother's friendship with Schorr, sadly leaving Schorr with the false assumption that an excessively late postmark in 2001 had prompted Ford to end the tradition.
Tags: mike barnicle, chronicle in fitchburg, wbur, a cat turd in your oatmeal
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