By Dan Kennedy • The press, politics, technology, culture and other passions

Media round-up: Losing our religion

A few local media tidbits for your perusal:

• The Boston Globe’s Michael Paulson, who may be the country’s best religion reporter working at a mainstream news organization, is taking a new position at the paper. According to the Boston Phoenix’s Adam Reilly, Paulson has been named city editor, reporting to new metro editor Jen Peter. I share Reilly’s hope that this doesn’t mean the Globe has reduced its commitment to serious coverage of religion.

• Local political junkies rejoice: Peter Lucas is back on the beat. A longtime reporter for the Phoenix and the Boston Herald, Lucas disappeared into the state bureaucracy for several decades. He has now re-emerged, and will write a twice-weekly column for the Lowell Sun, according to Jon Keller. I once had the privilege of hearing Lucas’ hilarious retelling of the “White Will Run” incident Keller describes that nearly brought a premature end to Lucas’ reporting career. I look forward to reading his Sun column.

• Sharp-eyed Universal Hubster Adam Gaffin flags a tidbit from Boston Radio Watch hinting that Greater Boston may be getting yet another talk station — WXKS (AM 1430), owned by Clear Channel. Given its weak signal, it presumably would not pose much of a threat to WRKO (AM 680), WTKK (96.9 FM) or WWZN (AM 1510) — the last a liberal station that itself is no great shakes when it comes to having a listenable signal.

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    2 Comments

    1. Laurence Glavin

      From sunrise until sunset, WWZN-AM 1510 (a full-time 50,000-watt outlet) has a more than decent signal. I’ve received it at midday in the summer in Pittsfield, MA. I’m a great fan of Stephanie Miller’s show, heard on WWZN for only two of its three hours from 10:00 am until noon Monday thru Friday; on Tuesdays at about 10:30, it’s appointment radio because Charlie Pierce is a weekly contributor.

    2. Bob Nelson

      The actual want ad, which ran not only on a “tweet my jobs” site but on a Clear Channel jobs site (from which it was taken) said it was for “WXKS AM 1200 AM” (dept. of redundancy dept.); the call letters for 1200 are WKOX but I think the intent is to switch 1200 not 1430 and maybe the calls would be flipped. 1200 got a power increase/tower move last year and is pretty good by day. Not as good as the similar 50k watt
      WRKO–which benefits by having a lower spot on the dial–but not bad.
      If they go to conservative talk they could run Premiere/CC’s Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh (taken from RKO?) and Sean Hannity.
      Other hosts like Dennis Miller, Mark Levin, Dr. Laura,
      Jim Bohannon–perhaps even liberal Randi Rhodes who is syndicated by Premiere–could be possible too.

      No idea if they would try libtalk again. CC ran progtalk
      from Oct of 04 till Dec of 06 then pulled it; the power increase/tower move didn’t come till last spring. Whether it would have helped “Boston’s Progressive Talk”, who knows. Now the Jeff Santos-brokered “Revolution Boston”
      does air on WWZN.

      Even if it may not do well in the ratings, Premiere would want to have its shows “cleared” in the Boston market for
      advertising purposes. This has been hinted at for a few
      years now.

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