Clear Channel Conglomerate Swallows Classic New York City AM Station

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)The New York Times reported today that Clear Channel Communications, Inc., the largest radio station owner in the U.S., will add WOR-AM to its stable of 850 properties.

The Times article said 50,000-watt, WOR-AM 710 on the dial, New York City's oldest operating broadcaster, will be the sixth New York City outlet owned by Clear Channel, though its first AM signal. Terms of the sale of WOR, which began broadcasting in 1922, were not disclosed.

The station has been owned by Buckley Broadcasting Corp. since 1989. The talk station's roster of talent includes former Governors David Patterson (N.Y.) and Mike Huckabee (Ark.), right-wing bomb-thrower Michael Savage and John Gambling (Disclosure: Gambling, the son of long-time WOR mainstay John Gambling Jr. of "Rambling with Gambling" fame, was a big dog at Boston University's WTBU-AM  in the early '70s at the same time as the ever-youthful staff of "TUOL" also toiled there on crazy late-night programs).

Other Clear Channel owned stations in New York City include WHTZ-FM "Z100", a Top 40 station, and WLTW-FM "Lite FM." WOR-AM ranked 19th in the July Arbitron ratings with 626,000 listeners, according to the Times article.

CJR Uses FOIL to Get G-O-V Emails

Image by ianqui via FlickrApproximately 2,000 emails among the news media, former NY Gov. David Patterson's press flack Peter Kaufmann,  and deputy press secretary Melissa Shorenstein are the target of a lawsuit filed by Columbia Journalism Review under New York's Freedom of Information Law ("FOIL") [Pub. Off. Law Sec. 87 et seq.].

CJR reporter Clint Hendler (Disclosure: "TUOL"'s co-panelist on a discussion of anonymous bloggers on N.H. Public Radio's The Exchange 11/17/09,  http://www.nhpr.org/node/27862) originally sought the government emails following the "integrity"-based resignations of Kaufmann and Shorenstein in March 2009, concerning allegations that gubernatorial aide David Johnson was involved in a domestic violence incident. The governor's office has refused to produce the electronic correspondence, citing the reporter's privilege of NY's shield law[Civil Rights Law Art. 7, Sec. 79-h(a)(6)] and the presence of commercially sensitive information as the basis for withholding the emails.

A NY law firm is representing CJR pro bono.