In an interview that was posted almost exactly a year ago, WLS AM 890 General Manager, Michael Damsky, was interviewed on the Chicago Radio Spotlight blog and had this to say about carrying Rush Limbaugh in Chicago and why he never seems to get in trouble:
I cannot explain why it is that he never gets in trouble. To be totally honest with you, that’s three hours of the broadcast day I don’t give a lot of thought to, because it’s a given. I don’t worry about it, except from a sales perspective.
To which, his interviewer asks:
Isn’t the reason he doesn’t get in trouble the fact that he owns his show?
Michael: Well, yes, that’s true. But to be honest, I’m not even sure if Rush is that outrageous anymore. There are others out there that are far more outrageous than Rush now.
Bold face mine. No doubt, this GM has begun to think differently about Rush. Want to help put him over the edge? See below the orange squiggle.
This post is also inspired by the terrific posts that ipsos has done in the last several weeks (here and here). I was hoping if I did some of the legwork, you could more easily help put pressure on WLS AM 890 radio in Chicago to yank Rush's hate-filled speech off of the air for good.
Based on ipsos's advice, I did the research and here's who you send your letter to:
Michael Damsky, General Manager
WLSAM890 Radio
190 North State St.
Chicago, IL 60601
cc: Drew Hayes, Program Director
The wording about why you want Rush off the air should be civil and your own, but ipsos advises:
(B)e sure to ask in the letter that a copy be inserted in the station's public file. Indicate, in these words, that you don't think that continued carriage of the Rush Limbaugh Show "serves the public interest, convenience or necessity." This has no particular weight with the FCC, but it will make a local station manager nervous anyway, so do it. Local station managers, especially at locally-owned stations, don't like anything that makes them nervous.
WLSAM 890's FCC license is due for renewal on December 1, 2012, NOW is the time to put the pressure on. The next step, per ipsos, is to visit the station.
Please help if you can. We also need to research the downstate radio stations that carry Rush and get him off the air for good. It does no good if we only get Rush off the air in BLUE markets. But, that's another diary.