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Michael Ferro Jr.<\/b><\/p>\n\t <\/div>\n\t <\/div>\n\t

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Rocky Wirtz<\/b><\/p>\n\t <\/div>\n\t <\/div>\n\t
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Dennis Welsh<\/b><\/p>\n\t <\/div>\n\t <\/div>\n\t
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Gary Weitman<\/b><\/p>\n\t <\/div>\n\t <\/div>\n\t
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Garry Meier<\/b><\/p>\n\t <\/div>\n\t <\/div>\n\t
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Cumulus Media<\/b><\/p>\n\t <\/div>\n\t <\/div>\n\t
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Carol Roth<\/b><\/p>\n\t <\/div>\n\t <\/div>\n\t
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Jim Laski<\/b><\/p>\n\t <\/div>\n\t <\/div>\n\t
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Jerry Springer<\/b> (Photo: Kathleen Virginia)<\/p>\n\t <\/div>\n\t <\/div><\/div>\n\t ‹<\/a>\n\t ›<\/a><\/div>\n
With a deep bow to the immortal Roy Leonard, whose Turkey of the Year Awards were a Thanksgiving Day tradition on WGN AM 720 for decades, here's a hearty flip of the bird to this year\u2019s Chicago media recipients:<\/p>\n
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Sun-Times owner Michael Ferro Jr.\u2019s<\/strong> one regret after the universally condemned decision to eliminate his newspaper\u2019s entire photography staff: That he didn\u2019t do it sooner. \u201cWe took a year and a half too long to do it,\u201d he told Chicago magazine.<\/a> \u201cI can tell you 100 percent before we bought this we had that cutlass ready.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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Blackhawks chairman Rocky Wirtz<\/strong>\u00a0pulled off an outrageous power play when he pressured Comcast SportsNet to fire popular reporter Susannah Collins. Her offense? Four years earlier, Collins appeared in \u201cSports Nutz,\u201d a scripted, satirical video series that surfaced on YouTube. Granted the show was a little racy, but Collins never hid her involvement with it. Nor was it relevant to her employment. \u201cIn my opinion and those of others, [the videos] are incredibly offensive to a number of audiences, going well beyond professional athletes,\" wrote Wirtz,<\/a> demanding that CSN \"remove [Collins] from our broadcast immediately.\" Her spineless bosses eagerly complied.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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Only months after arriving from Orlando, Fox 32 general manager Dennis Welsh<\/strong> delivered a patronizing lecture to viewers about the evils of nepotism. \u201cAll of this political inbreeding strikes us as one more symptom of what has Illinois and Chicago at the tipping point,\u201d this carpetbagger declared. He did so while seated on a throne.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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Tribune Co. spokesman Gary Weitman<\/strong> disputed my report in September that CEO Peter Liguori had ordered $100 million in budget cuts, calling it \u201cgrossly inaccurate.\u201d <\/a>Two months later the company announced a sweeping reorganization (including nearly 700 layoffs) \u2014 and Liguori hired a new chief communications officer.<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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Odd duck\u00a0Garry Meier<\/strong>\u00a0made a point to thank 17 \u201cpeople that mattered\u201d in his Radio Hall of Fame acceptance speech. Notably missing from the list was his former partner and fellow inductee, Steve Dahl \u2014 and his other collaborators over the years, Roe Conn and Jim Turano. Meier\u2019s mindset: <\/a>\u201cThe Steve & Garry years developed organically,\u201d he said. \u201cThe planets aligned, the dots connected and a 14\u00bd-year run happened.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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The nauseating greed of Cumulus Media<\/strong> was never more evident than when WLS AM 890 chose to run commercials throughout a two-hour memorial tribute to Don Wade, who\u2019d been the station\u2019s morning star for more than 25 years. Apparently the millions he made for the company during his lifetime weren\u2019t enough.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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Back when lunatics were still running WGN AM 720, they tapped a radio novice named Carol Roth<\/strong> to host the noon show. Clearly in over her head, Roth let the word \u201cbullshit\u201d get on the air within the first 20 minutes of her first show. No explanation, no apology, no nothing. Six painful months later, she was gone. No bullshit.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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Former alderman and city clerk Jim Laski,<\/strong> the jailbird-turned-radio-host, used the final minutes of his last time-brokered show to blast the management of WCPT AM 820 for expecting him to pay his bills. \u201cI\u2019d like to thank you a little bit, but I don\u2019t think I should,\u201d he told one station exec on the air. \u201cYou didn\u2019t really kick ass trying to sell ads.\u201d To another he said: \u201cYou can try out for Scrooge.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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The local outpost of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences chose Jerry Springer<\/strong> to host the Chicago Emmy Awards. \u201cWe\u2019re thrilled to have a professional of Jerry Springer\u2019s caliber emcee the event,\u201d chapter president Marcus Riley said. One member of the group\u2019s board of governors resigned in protest. Unfazed as usual, Springer joked:<\/a> \u201cI open the envelope. What\u2019s the difference? Whoever I say wins.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
With a deep bow to the immortal Roy Leonard, whose Turkey of the Year Awards were a Thanksgiving Day tradition on WGN AM 720 for decades, here's a hearty flip of the bird to this year\u2019s Chicago media recipients:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1394"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1394"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1394\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1450,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1394\/revisions\/1450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}