This Tuesday’s Robert Feder column in the Chicago Sun Times ran with comments by Cara Carriveau, a radio personality on WLUP (The Loop), a station in that market. Carriveau was heavily critical of the lack of major personalities on the air in that particular city, although not naming any particular stations or specific incidents.
Radio and Records’ Mike Boyle details the situation that ensued following that letter running in the Sun-Times earlier in the week, which culminated in Carriveau being fired from WLUP, but apparently not just for this particular incident. Boyle points out what Feder’s followup column from Thursday stated, including the station’s VP/GM, Marv Nyren, telling Feder that there were “other incidents” that took place before this one with Carriveau.
Now, to be fair, what Carriveau said really isn’t too far off from what most of us who have been ragging terrestrial radio for some time now have to say. It’s not like what she had to say was *that* inflammatory, but I’d liken it to what has gone on in a lot of industries, including what we do for my day job. For instance, it’s no concern for companies today to “let” employees have personal blogs. Stopping them from doing so, for the most part, will only cause more problems in the public’s eye. However, those employees should always try and use their best judgement when being critical of work, or the industry they are employed in, for obvious reasons. Most people are “at will” employees, and something like this would be very easy for an employer to terminate an employee for.
