Silencing the liberal voice in Media.

Last edited Sat Jul 20, 2024, 08:25 AM - Edit history (13)

Midnight, Friday, August 31, 2001, NYC liberal/progressive radio station, WEVD went off the air.

WEVD was founded in 1927 to honor Eugene V. Debs, the Socialist candidate for President. Originally a station that broadcast in several languages, e.g., Yiddish, Polish, etc. to give new immigrants access to the world around them.

The signal reached all five boroughs of New York City, northern New Jersey, Long Island, Westchester County.

By 1998, WEVD had several hosts who had liberal leanings and took listeners calling in. A lot of them were elderly folks who otherwise had no voice. They remembered the New Deal and the Great Society. The hosts discussed issues that were otherwise ignored by radio, television, cable, and newspaper entities. Local, Regional, State, and National. The station unabashedly called itself "Progressive Radio, 1050, WEVD".

Renowned columnists regularly appeared on various shows: Joe Conason, Gene Lyons, Sidney Zion, Wayne Barrett, Pete Hamill, Lars Erik Nelson, Michael Tomasky, Michael Isakoff, and more. None of these writers appeared on any other station. And politicians also made themselves available to the hosts. Authors came on shows to explain their new books. It was truly a rare moment in radio history.

And the station made money from its success.

Broadcast hours were generally M-F from 5:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. The other hours were filled with paid programs.

Example of topics discussed: Contract For America, Newt Gingrich, Tom DeLay, James A. Traficant Jr., Dick Armey, Jack Abramoff, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Rudy Giuliani, and more. Indepth analysis of government.

In 2001, WEVD was owned by the Jewish Forward. And without warning, the Forward announced that it was selling the station outright, the call sign, the frequency, everything. And selling it to the Disney Corporation, which had no intention of maintaining the format. To the contrary, 1050 would be the flagship station for the radio representation of sports, ESPN.

NYC was losing its ONLY commercial, non-conservative radio station, effective August 31, 2001. By this time, WABC had stopped hosting both liberal and conservative formats and WWOR had gone conservative as well. While NYC still had Pacifica WBAI and New York Public Radio, a station dedicated to bringing news, facts, and analysis like WEVD was lost.

On August 31, 2001, the last day of broadcasting, it was stunning. The long line of listeners to call in was heart-breaking. Some expressed grief, distress, disbelief. Others expressed their well wishes to the hosts. Others called just to say, "I'm calling now while there's still 'Radio Free America'". Even Robert Merrill, the famous Baritone, called in to say "goodbye" to host Bill Mazer.

Less than two weeks later, 9/11 happened. And our radio community was isolated. To make matters even more grim, WEVD's frequency of 1050 was simulcasting WABC's coverage of the crisis, with no less than Curtis Sliwa.

I maintained at the time, this wasn't solely a "business decision", that rather, it was a choice to silence the station. Up until 2001, The Forward wasn't putting WEVD up for sale. Like I said, the station was making money. But a corporation offered it more money to sell.

Knowing its imminent demise, I taped the last two weeks (including its last minutes on air) of WEVD. Alan Colmes, no less, bid farewell.

Since 2001, there were short-lived attempts to make another progressive/liberal/non-conservative station work in NYC. There was WLIB and WWRL, both of which hosted "Air America".

And I'm not kidding myself. If Trump gets in, the FCC will go after WBAI/Pacifica and de-fund public radio.

As the saying goes, I've seen this movie before.