BlatherWatch

KIROFM presents: refried weekends

Gone is the KOMO-fied wallpaper that was KIRO’s NW Weekends. Larry Rice is long gone, his replacement Josh Kerns gets to sleep in. 

They won’t be paying any live hosts on weekends starting Saturday. KIRO announced the changes Wednesday calling the new weekend fare: “Learn. Laugh. Relax.” We would add, "Drink." That is, if you had any expectation of any new or live content.

What’s new?

An hour each of morning news anchors Bill Radke (Sat. 6-7a, noon-1p; Sun. 2-3p) and Linda Thomas’ (Sat. 8-9a, Sun. 3-4p) conglommed news bits from the week past.
The same (Sat 1-2p Sunday 4-5p) for Rachel Belle’s fetching little feetches, Ring My Belle (or I’ll kill you, foo’) will be amagamated from the previous week's Ron & Don Show.

Summertime, summertime- sum, sum summertime...

Jeez. Whooda thunk it? Rupert Murdoch in a fight for his life. President Obama leading the Republicans around like a kid with a calf; the one-time self-described King of Seattle Talk Radio tanking in local ratings!

• Murdoch has taken the biggest blow of his business career, and is just waiting for more legal shoes to drop on both sides of the Atlantic. Will The Wall Street Journal, The NY Post, or Fox News Channel become implicated in the sleazy "pay-the-pigs-for-dirt" scandal? That's a good question, but inquiring minds are speaking up and out. Chickens are coming on home to roost for the ruthless, right-wing media billionaire as not only Democrats like Barbara Boxer and Commerce, Science & Transportation Chairman John D. Rockefeller are calling for the Justice Department to investigate, but also Republicans like Rep. Peter King who wants to know if 9-11 victims' families' phones were hacked. Republican jail bird Bernard Kerik had, as New York Police Commish, a close association to The Post after 9-11, and was not above taking a buck or two for the cause (cause he could always use the dough). Now we know that Murdoch money was ready and willing at such times of need.

• Republicans may still bring the economy down on all of our heads with a refusal to raise the debt ceiling, but we liberals can be pretty happy with the President's leadership on this matter. He's got them in a corner in a shit-or- go-blind position to which he maneuvered brilliantly. It was the kind of bold legislative moves we've come to expect from              (photo: Louie Gohmert) Republicans, frankly. We hope calmer heads will prevail in the GOP and the leadership can find a way to buy off the idealogues in the House. Either way, the president has prevailed in this mess. If the GOP chooses the "nucular" (as Louie Gohmert would put it) option, the US would be in huge difficulty, but the GOP would be moribund for a generation.

• And if this all this wasn't a delightful enough turnaround from some recent summers past, the June ratings book has shown, we're told, that Dori Monson's 25-54 numbers haven't been lower since KIRO first flipped from AM to FM. Dori, who has taken some hits this year, is now considered a drag on the station's dayparts. "Wonder what kind of numbers Ron & Don could get if there were somebody on in the midday who doesn't run listeners off?" asks our guy at KIRO.

Despite the kinky weather, and that we could be facing utter economic destruction at the hands of a political party completely cowed by a smallish claque who dress in funny hats, we love our summertime this year. A downfall of the pernicious Rupert Murdoch -- or Robert Murdoch as John Curley (KIRO m-f, 7-10p) insists on calling him- would be very good for the Republic. He's hurt US journalism in a way that may insure it never gets back to normal and credibility. (Fun Fact: Fox News has mentioned the Murdoch scandal but 4 times in two weeks! ... or 26 times if you believe them about it being mentioned on shows conveniently not in the Nexus-Lexus database).

As for Dori: Don't expect anything to happen until Fall... and maybe not then. He's got a pretty strong contract we hear, and he's got to have a few more bad books to trigger any kind of real justice. We'll just have to take heart in his promise he'll retire in June 2016.

We heart ron & don

We kept wondering: Why are Ron & Don (KIROFM m-f, 3-7p) the highest-rated talk hosts in Seattle?  

They are after all, really stoopid. Don O'Neill plays a crude, agrammatical Tom Smothers to Ron Upshaw's dithering, ever-explaining Dickie. They rarely do real issues; they dally usually in crime stories and celebrity gossip.

Sweet jesus, guess we have to explain ...

We were furious.

So yesterday we called Dori Monson a child molester in a satirical post.

(photo: Dori Monson, creep factor: 11)

We stick by our post and the reasons we posted it.

We'd just endured two days of Dori Monson (KIRO m-f, 12-3p) insouciantly calling a 51-year-old man who'd married a 16-year-old girl, a child molester and a "perv." He used that catch-all descriptor, "creepy" a lot. (despite his own well-established creep-factor).

Had this guy been arrested and charged for that vile crime?

Au contraire: he had legally and with the permission of her parents married the girl according to good Christian principles.. (you know: He did the right thing, made an honest woman of her, even married her in a church).

Dori monson is "a creepy child molester!"

We're not surprised.

And neither is Jennifer Hoff whose daughter Layla, 16, is one of "Dori's girls" at Shorecrest High School high where he coaches girls' basketball.

Layla says "Mr. Monson is a creepy little man and I don't like the way he looks at me."

(photo: KING5)

Her mother told BlatherWatch that Monson (KIROFM m-f, 12-3p) seems to be fixated on Layla's large breasts. "Can't keep his eyes off 'em," she says. "He's a creepy child molester in my eyes."

Large breasts seem to be recquisite to being one of "Dori's girls."

Dori monson to quit talk radio

(photo: Fluffy the Snake, Dori the Monson, Jessica the Gottesman, Li'l Jake)

That's the good news- the other news is that it ain't happening, he says, until June 2016.

At least that's what Dori (KIROFM m-f 12-3p) told Goddess Jessicaman and listeners today, in what passes as a reflective moment on his daily, noisome, parochial bombast.

Who knows what to believe- he told listeners in January that he'd been fired the month before and had to threaten to sue to keep his grip on the midday perch.

Dori's numbers have sunk lower than Ron & Don's (3-7p) and Dave & Luke's (9a-12p). And Michael Medved's (KTTH m-f, 12-3p).

Treatment ...for what? UP-DATED

Monday UPDATE: For the record, it took Dori Monson exactly 17 mins, 31 seconds to turn his show over to Weiner, Weiner Weiner. Today's quotable: "Who does that???!!!" Same as every day's last week.

Being an horndog? an idiot? There is no rehab for the either of those conditions (except, perhaps, getting old) so we got quite a laugh when we heard Sunday that Rep. Anthony Weiner has trotted off to KYPIYP* classes in the Adirondacks or somewhere.

He didn't break any law, so there's no jail they can put him in, so he'll go to his doghouse (horndogs go to doghouses, no?). He'll be punished, and hopefully the media and therefore the public will be on to somebody else's dick by the time he's sprung.

Dori needs a tagline: let's help!

Dori Monson's (KIROFM m-f,12-3p) tagline is "Looking out for your freedoms," which is not only lame, but a rip-off from his spiritual father, Billo Reilly's "Looking out for you."

He told listeners Tuesday he needs a new one. Although we often rip him a new one, we've generously leaped into the breach, our suggestions suck (see below the fold) -- we know you can do better... please help.

KUOW reports on... itself

    News organizations HATE it when they become the news.

    But KUOW couldn't ignore the Cliff Mass flap in the end, so they sic-ed veteran reporter Deb Wang on the story. She talked to a Poynter Institute ethic consultant and called in a special editor from outside the KUOW newsroom. Here's Wang from the news dep't Facebook page talking about tackling the story that was sticky-wicket to report at best.

(photo: Deborah Wang)

I’ve been a reporter for a long time, but this is the first time I’ve ever covered my own organization. It’s a tricky assignment and fraught with difficulties. The potential for conflict of interest is an obvious one. The first call I made was to Kelly McBride, an expert on journalism ethics at the Poynter Institute. She gave me a rundown of best practices for how to cover your own organization: 1) stay independent, 2) use your best journalistic judgment, 3) strive to serve your audience and not your organization, 4) work with an outside editor, and 5) communicate clearly with your audience how you covered the story. That advice, and in particular point #3, stayed in my head as I reported this. A couple of the people I interviewed expressed doubts about my ability to report on the issue fairly. I tried very, very hard to be fair and balanced, and also to tell a good story. To edit the story, we turned to Kate Concannon. She is a former Western Bureau Chief for NPR and now is a freelance editor, with no connection to KUOW.

    Gotta say, seen through the porcelain eye of a good reporter, KUOW's position is pretty solid. Listen or read a transcript of Wang's back-strainingly fair piece here.

    (Couldn't help being reminded of how different public radio's journalistic standards are than KIROFM's, as displayed in this story)

Gottess jessicaman partners with the dori show

(photo: Fluffy the Snake, Dori the Monson, Jessica the Gottesman, Li'l Jake)

We love this line from KIROFM's Jessica Gottesman's Wikipedia page:

Since recording the subway stops system-wide for the east side New York City subway train lines in the late 1990s, [Gottesman] has garnered a cult following. Time Out NY Magazine called her an "Indoor Stimulant" in its "Horny New York" issue.

Today Bonneville announced that the one-time NY subway recording babe with the sexy voice will join Dori Monson (m-f, 12-3p) as on-air partner, news anchor and "regular contributor." (We were thinking of doing a "Horny Seattle Issue," but frankly, it'd never occurred to us to look for sex objects among local radio talent).