By Reginald Johnson
These
are the last days for a bastion of news coverage, WCBS News Radio 880 in New
York.
The
station, which presented local, regional and national news pretty much 24-7 for
the past 57 years to millions of people in the New York tri-state
area, will close down news operations on Monday. A new station called WHSQ will
take over and present ESPN sports talk.
What a disaster. WCBS did quite a good job
over the years reporting news in a thorough and professional manner. You had
local and regional reports throughout the day and national and world stories at the top of the hour. And every half hour, you got sports
headlines, traffic and weather.
You could always turn on 880 and be sure you
were going to get a pretty good overview of what was going on. It was kind of
like “Old Reliable” on the radio dial.
Now there’s going to be a “news desert” in
what is supposed to be the “communications capital of the world” --- New York
City.
The parent company of WCBS, something called
“Audacy” (they should just call it “Audacity”) insists that all is not lost. They
say a sister station, 1010 WINS, still offers 24-7 news and will fill the void.
No, it won’t. I’ve listened to 1010 WINS and
it’s pathetic. Here’s the typical fare on WINS: somebody got assaulted in Times
Square, a person was shot in the Bronx, or a car jumped the curb and hit a
store window in Queens. Few national stories or any stories of import are
offered.
People
will say, no problem, just bring up the Internet on your cell phone and you’ll
get all the big news you need. Yes, you can, but in most cases you’ll have to pay
for it. For most sites, like newspaper sites, you have to be a subscriber.
And that’s another nice thing about WCBS 880.
It’s free. Just turn on the radio, hit a button, and you’re there. You had news for free and totally accessible. No pay walls.
Yes, you had to put up with ads, but so what? You got a lot of news.
Personally, I go way back with WCBS 880. I've been listening for over 50 years. I can remember listening to the Senate Watergate hearings in 1973, and John Dean giving testimony, as I drove to work at the Bridgeport Telegram where I was a cub reporter. The station was running the Watergate hearings live, which was a real public service.
And that's another key point that has to be made here. WCBS 880 provided a public service. This is what journalism is supposed to do. The station is really a public service institution. Now some corporation, looking solely at its bottom line, and not considering the public interest, can just flick it away. Gone. This should not be allowed to happen.
But it does happen in our capitalist system where public needs or community needs are just not part of the equation.
Yesterday
I heard longtime anchors Wayne Cabot and Paul Murnane chatting and
reminiscing. Both have been there for 30-40 years covering so many big
events, including 911. Former legendary reporter
Rich Lamb (who I remember came up to Bridgeport in 1987 to cover the L’Ambiance
construction disaster) called in and said the end of WCBS represented a “radio earthquake” for the New York area and leaves a "vacumn." He’s right. Former anchor Bridgette Quinn and a producer (whose name I can't remember) also mourned the loss
of the station. The producer said the time she spent at the station were “the best
years of her life.” It was sad.
Below is a good piece from CNN about the
closure of 880, the decline of all-news radio, and the financial pressures
stations are facing. https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/16/media/news-radio-local-wcbs-wnyc-sign-off-job-cuts-spotify/index.html
So there
you have it.
All-news
radio replaced by 24-7 sports talk.
Welcome
to the dumbing down of America.
