Posted: Friday, 16 October 2009 11:22AM
Keep The Rogues In Line
Steve Corbett Reporting
Friday, October 16, 2009
We’ve got people talking.
At WILK News Radio, that’s the whole point.
Once people start talking, people start listening. And once people start listening, people start thinking. And once people start thinking, people are more inclined to turn bad into good.
Such progress is the mark of a strong community. Such advances improve the quality of people’s lives. Such movement forward attacks the corruption in our communities and helps us heal.
People who live in healthy communities talk regularly with each other. And that’s what we at WILK strive to make happen.
Many people nowadays are talking about how well WILK did in the most recent official survey of regional radio success. Some people express surprise at how well we did and ask if maybe the gods shined on us for some special reason. If lighting bolts flashed, we fired them because each day we offer our thoughts and ideas, exposing ourselves to retribution and sneak attacks from any and all critics.
In the process, we offer you the chance to talk about your lives and thoughts as well.
Our calling is sacred and we’re good at it.
Although I still write three online columns a week, I’m a strong on-air presence five days a week, four hours a day. During that time I take very seriously the issues of the day and the matters that matter – events that shape our lives.
My urge to write remains and grows from seeds planted very long ago. That urge translated into my working as a daily newspaper columnist for more than 20 years. Even before that, as I fought my way into the newspaper business, I knew I had something valuable to say.
I still do.
So do you.
But until I started working full-time at WILK I never thought I would ever call myself an ex-newspaperman. My successes and failures in the newspaper business enabled me to become the person I always wanted to be. For that I’ll always be thankful.
But now I’m equally proud to call myself a radioman and news talk show host.
I’m still a journalist – and a good one.
But I’m also part of the new media who is helping to forge ahead in a changing national arena that we at WILK are helping to shape. We’re taking regional radio into areas where it has never gone. We’re breaking news and shaping public opinion. We’re a political force. We’re respected, sometimes hated and sometimes feared. We’re taking risks and chances.
What we’re not taking are foolish risks.
Each day I step up to the mike with a renewed fervor about being fair, being accurate and being thorough. Each day I challenge the system, question authority and ask you to develop the confidence to do the same.
And you do just that, successfully challenging yourself and the often staid yet powerful political institutions that for more than a century received a free ride in Northeastern Pennsylvania.
That takes guts.
Rattling cages can be hazardous to your health.
A radio station boss in Harrisburg fired me from my first radio talk show job 25 years ago after an elected public official called the boss and made a false accusation about me. I was regularly pounding that official in a weekly newspaper and he feared the open discussion. Afraid of the power of free speech and creative expression, he understood that social change comes from people who honestly use ideas. And he did not want to change.
“We never know what’s going to come out of your mouth,” the boss told me the morning we parted company.
“That’s the whole point,” I said with a smile.
I understand what he was trying to say. Back then, news talk radio was new terrain. The medium remains a double-edged sword and is not for the timid. The unknown inherent in free expression is exactly what makes it free. Yet, to fear freedom is to fear what might emerge as an improvement and a change for the better.
We’re not afraid at WILK.
Nor should you fear the political power brokers who created the ongoing federal public corruption investigation that has resulted in federal charges against 17 people since January in and around Luzerne County.
These public servants are paid well to serve your interests, not their own interests or the interests of their families and friends.
And our job at WILK is to join you in working together to keep the rogues in line.
That’s not just my opinion.
That’s a promise.
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