Seattle Weekly: webb of deceit, paranoia and anger

IN A FASCINATING in depth cover piece in the new Seattle Weekly, Mike Webb tells more lies, proclaims his innocence in his fraud case; and expounds on his complicated and theory of how he was framed.

His former KIRO cohorts tell the puzzling back story.

Political columnist, radio commentator, and journalist Geov Parrish  (KEXP-FM Saturdays, 8:30-9a) chronicles his former friend and KIRO talk host who BlatherWatch exposed in December after being arrested and charged for felony insurance fraud.

Parrish talked to Webb for hours, and to some of Webb's friends and former coworkers; most of whom spoke off the record. He uncovered some brand new obfuscations by Webb, new evidence of his instability, and lots of new inside dish.

Webb's photo paranoia is notorious. He successfully eluded the SW art department's search for a picture of him, hurriedly taking down a picture of himself and Rep. Jim McDermott from a website.

~~Despite the overwhelming evidence, Webb continues to strongly maintain his innocence in his legal case, which goes to court, April 21. “To be accused of something, it’s devastating,” he told Parrish. Webb famously told The Seattle Times' reporter, Christine Clarridge on Dec. 22, "It would take an absolute idiot to try to defraud someone like that.” He underscored that for the Seattle Weekly: “Some of this stuff, it would take a moron to do.” (Beyond that, on the advice of his attorney, he'd not comment on the specifics of the case, although he couldn't help himself, blabbing contradictions to his previous statements to the media).

~~Webb has changed his story since talking to the Clarridge in December. He now says that he no longer thinks anyone broke into Geico or Washington Mutual’s computers, or that "it is the possible result of an insurance company snafu resulting from a clerical or computer error." He now suspects his own computer was hacked, and told Parrish he noticed other signs his computer was being tampered with. But such a scenario, according to a software engineer Parrish interviewed, has serious problems. Parrish: "For Webb’s scenario to happen...his computer would have had to be remotely controlled for more than a month, from the original May 20 purchase to the phony June 29 one. Not only should Webb have noticed, but basic virus protection would have prevented it. Any competent Internet service provider would detect it. More likely, rather than waiting for a car accident he or she didn’t know would happen, and rather than wasting time on an elaborate insurance scheme, such a hacker would have simply cleaned out Webb’s life savings or some such."

~~“'KIRO did not need to release me,” says Webb. 'They could have waited this out. If the courts decided that I was proven guilty, that I could understand. But in this country you’re innocent until proven guilty. When I had good ratings and sales, why they fired me, I don’t understand it.'”

~~Could the union that Mike helped kick out of the KIRO workplace have helped him? Parrish writes: "There remains the vexing question of why he was fired. Entercom’s version doesn’t add up. It found out about Webb’s “withheld” information two days before it backed him in remarks to the Times, a full week before Webb was let go."

~~Webb told Parrish, and the Seattle Times that he and the SPD had settled, only two days before the Aug.1 police interview about the insurance claim. His suit over his alleged assault by Seattle cops in 2004 at Dick's Drive-in on Capitol Hill "fuel[ed] his suspicion," Parrish writes, that the police may have been after revenge for the incident. He adds that Webb claims, "he got SPD to 'acknowledge that it was improper for the department to perform that way' and won a 'small' cash settlement. However, as late as December—four months after the supposed settlement—SPD was saying the case hadn’t been resolved."

~~Astoundingly, Webb says he didn’t think the charges would become public. Then BlatherWatch blew it open. He says KIRO parent Entercom told him his "official undoing" was the two-week gap between his warrant and the BlatherWatch story. “It had to do with my not being forthcoming [with management] about the charges,” he told SW. Webb was counting on the whole thing blowing over instead of up so Entercom was caught flat-footed when the story broke. No wonder they were so nonplussed and pissed off.   

~~"On-air hosts’ instant messaging was...routed through their e-mail, and one night conservative host Lou Pate simply stopped getting instant messages. The problem persisted and, the story goes, after two or three days, then-Program Director Kris Olinger had the company’s computer expert investigate. He found that the messages were rerouted to Webb's computer, and that the rerouting of Pate’s messages had been arranged from Webb’s computer." Webb doesn't remember the incidence.

~~Until KIRO made him quit the practice, Webb pasted sound snippets from other hosts' shows to make montages for the intro to his own show. Parrish writes of an incident in which Webb took a statement by Pate, “'I don’t like it when black people make themselves out as victims,'  and rebroadcast it as, 'I don’t like black people.' To make matters worse, it supposedly came while Webb was filling in on Pate’s own show."

It was June 28, 2005, when Webb left the radio station during a news break to go to a nearby convenience store for a snack, and his black 2000 Lexus was hit by an uninsured driver who ran a yield sign. Webb showed police a proof-of-insurance card from National Merit. A report was made, and Webb was left with an estimated $4,000 in damage to his car.

According to investigators, on the next day, June 29, “according to Geico records, the defendant applied for and received motor vehicle insurance for his Lexus. … Geico records indicate that the initial payment of $151.00 was debited from his account on 6-29-05 at 15:31 local time. The next payment was debited from his account, again for $151, on 7-4-05 at 19:47 local time.”
    The day after Webb opened his policy, the report says, Geico received an e-mail from Webb: “I need to get a copy via email as promised. I signed up day before yesterday and they said it would come same day, can you please check this out? Thank you, Mike Webb.” Later that day of June 30, Webb allegedly called Geico to claim damages from the accident two days previous—an event that occurred, according to Geico’s records, the day before he bought insurance.
      Geico launched an investigation. Webb told investigators that he had opened his policy with Geico on May 20. He made that claim in taped conversations with both a Geico claims representative on July 5 and at a meeting with an investigator, Webb, and Webb’s lawyer in the lawyer’s office on Aug. 1.
      The police report continues: “During the interview of 8-1-05 … [the investigator] was presented by the defendant with a redacted copy of the defendant’s Washington Mutual on-line banking statement for the date range of 5-19-05 to 6-15-05. … Highlighted on this copy of the bank statement were account debits on 5-20-05 in the amount of $151.00 from DIRECTDEBIT/VISA-GEICO and 6-7-05 in the amount of $151.00 from DIRECTDEBIT/GEICO GEICO. The defendant contends that these deductions are proof that the defendant’s Geico policy was effective in May 2005 and in effect when the accident occurred on 6-28-05. [The investigator] requested permission from the defendant to view his on-line banking record or to give him consent to get a copy of his banking statement directly from Washington Mutual Bank but both requests were denied.”
      Investigators then obtained a search warrant for Webb’s WaMu records and found that they matched Geico’s timeline, not Webb’s: one Geico deduction for $151 on June 30, another on July 8, but nothing in May or early June.

~~Webb's many snack runs were a bone of contention with his fellow workers and apparently ignored by KIRO management. Says one former staffer: “It was common knowledge that Mike Webb would run out and be gone 15 or 20 minutes.” Another, Brian Maloney, claims KIRO management “knew about that night and covered it up.” Maloney is a former colleague of Webb’s at KIRO and an ex-host on KVI-AM (570) who now lives on the East Coast and publishes the conservative blog Radio Equalizer. ”In the history of broadcasting,” says Maloney, “I'm not sure anyone else has been crazy enough to make personal munchie runs during a radio talk show. … BOLDHow does a guy do this and not get suspended or fired? Why was he not fired at 9 a.m. the next day?”

~~A former colleague assesses Webb: “Mike is by far the most insecure person I’ve ever met in my life. Mike would try to do things behind the curtain. Rather than making friends, he would try to destroy them, tear them down.” And yet, “he’s always the victim.”

~~The mystery of the spectacular mismanagement of KIRO, a subject addressed way too much by us, is deepened, although many employees agree with BlatherWatch's ignorant guess work: "One theory goes," writes SW, "that as with many other mystifying recent KIRO programming decisions, the handling of Webb’s firing is an indication that KIRO’s corporate bosses at Entercom headquarters in suburban Philadelphia are either pulling the strings or somehow causing indecision here. 'It’s being run from the East Coast,' one former host says flatly. Webb agrees: 'I don’t believe [Program Director Tom Clendening’s] making the decisions there.'”

Maloney notes of Clendening, “It’s not really clear whether he’s in charge…KIRO does not look good on resumes anymore. Any agent would steer [a potential host] clear of that station and say that’s a dead duck. … This current regime is totally, totally incompetent.” Another ex-staffer sums it up: “It really is a case study in how to destroy a great radio station.”

The other mystery and the question overriding everything in this piece, is: what happened this 35-year radio career that had culminated in a weekday talk-show on a 50,000-watt, once-legendary leader in the nation's 14th-biggest radio market?

TOMORROW: MORE LIES.

Comments

[sparky]

Really sad, really weird...there are a variety of illnesses, none of them good, that have their first signs in a change in mental capacity.

Sounds like those of you who still listen to KIRO and are wistful for the old days need to be writing to the Heads on the East Coast.

[fsfad]

you know, why not just change this blog from blatherwatch to the "All Mike Webb, all the time!"

The ratings came out, what, two weeks ago? Not one mention on them. Pretty damn sad when I can get more info on the seattle market from the mouthbreathers at supersecreturl than a blog supposedly dedicated to radio.

I find it interesting that 100.7 "the wolf" hasn't pulled any listeners away from kmps, or the whole stern debacle and his replacements that's unfolding.

If you want to do a political blog, then fine, do a political blog, just don't call it a radio blog.

[JDB]

Very good article.

And while Insurance Companies make mistakes, they don't make one like this. Isn't it strange how all the facts are on one side of the case?

One question for those who might know, how the heck do you disapear for 20 minutes on a talk show? It's not like you can slap an album side on.

And another off topic question:

Since you mentioned Brian Maloney, what ever happen to the collapse of Air America and them losing their New York flagship station on April 1 that he and O'Reilly were pushing back in March? That seems to have totally dropped off the face of the earth.

[JDB]

By the way BlatheringMike:

Nice photo on the Weekly's web site!

[Frank Shiers' #1 fan EVAH EVAH!]

Nice to put a face to the blather!

[sclub]

fsfad, why blame Blathering Michael for a Seattle Weekly story?

[TomF]

It is death-wish behavior to leave the station, much less get in your car and drive somewhere, in the middle of a talk shift. Any trainee college-station jock will tell you that.

On overnight shifts in college radio, if we really had to go use the john for an extended period, we'd put on ELP's "Brain Salad Surgery" and run for it. You'd have about six minutes' sit-down time, and if the record skipped, God forbid, you would have to make a spectacle of yourself hopping back to the mike with your corduroys around your ankles. :)

Overall a good article. Now I would like to see Blatherwatch start to disentangle itself from its obsession with l'affaire Webb... he's gone, move on. More interesting to speculate about Ron Reagan, etc.

[chris]

Another question is how can Dave Ross stick around Kiro with all the negative press about the station and the change to afternoons. I sped read the article, but saw little mention of Ross.

[sparky]

It would be obsession with Mike only if he was no longer news worthy...but since he has a hearing coming up, that will be in the news, and that makes it worth keeping track of.

Now, if Mike goes to jail, and B'michael has a weekly update on his prison life....THAT would be obsessive!

A college acquaintance of mine worked for a small radio station in Oregon after graduation. He thought he had time to wash his hair in the bathroom sink ( ????) during an early Sunday morning church broadcast. Yep, you guessed it,..something went wrong with the equipment, it overheated and started a small fire. He was all alone in the station and it wasnt until he smelled smoke that he knew it had happened, and he had to call the firedepartment. Meanwhile, there had been about 15 minutes of dead air, and the station owner just happened to turn on the radio, didnt hear anything, so he drove to the station just in time to see the firetrucks arrive, and the DJ was standing in the parking lot, long hair dripping on his shoes.....
Fired on the spot......heh

[Tommy008]

keep the Mike Webb stuff up! Great! Enquiring minds WANT TO KNOW!

[sparky]

Wow.

I just read the Weekly article. That is just amazing stuff.

Mr. Blatherwatch..you look...distinguished!

[Fremont]

OMFG! That's a picture of Bla'M? And all this time, I thought I knew ye...My deepest aplologies, sir!

[joanie]

Sparky, haven't you heard the Larry King story about when he was starting in radio and got a call from a sexy woman who invited him over. He put on a series of records- however they did it in those days and it was very, very late at night - anyway, he met her, they did it, and on the way back he heard a stuck record on his station that had been playing over and over and over . . . I think he said he was like 19 or 20 but he told that story several times during his overnight show years ago. There was more to the story but suffice it to say he made it funny! I sure enjoyed listening to him late at night.

[joanie]

BM - I like the way you look, too. You look more like a writer than a chef. I also liked the discussion about felons on DL . . . made a lot of sense. Have been meaning to mention that.

[Andrew]

Q: I'm curious about this kind of thing, does the photographer ask you to put your head in your hand or is that all Michael Hood?

[JC]

I think I figured out one of Webb's new "affiliates".. Free Radio Santa Cruz. He's not listed on their schedule, but there's a few holes in it and nothing listed during overnight:

http://www.freakradio.org/schedule.html

[sparky]

Wow, calling pirate radio an "affiliate" is a stretch!

[Tommy008]

I'm glad that finally KIRO told Webb to knock it off in regards to using samples from other station host's shows, and editing them in a way to ridicule and demean them, although they let it go on far too long. I thought that was one of the most punk practices that Webb indulged himself in , out of a long list of them, since Webb himself is a huge punk. It's the cowardly bully thing to do. I picked up on Webb's sly dishonesty when I noticed a couple of things he did while I was listening. For one, he liked to change my attack emails to him to positive ones and read them over the air like that. The creep got a big kick out of it. Also, once a caller mentioned a news story which cast his hero Jim McDermott in a negative light. Webb accused the caller of being a shill, and then made a big show of googling the news story, but he was using such vague keywords to google it , he knew damn well he wouldn't get any relevant results. The caller, sensing this, protested and suggested a keyword that would guarantee the cited news story would be found. "No no" Webb arrogantly dismissed him, "this is fine". Then when the searched for story failed to appear on the google list, Webb disengenuously and dishonestly crowed that there was no story.

[Fremont]

&rew, Bla'M is no longer a chef because his hands are permanently attached to his head. It's charming in photos, but rather freakish...

[Tommy008]

Webb the Punk disses Brian Maloney in the Weekly article about his downfall, saying he 's not a very good talkhost. Even though he was too conservative for me, I would have enjoyed Maloney much more in Webb's old slot than Webb, since he was actually the better talkhost of the two. Maloney always did good preparation for his shows, and, unlike Herr Webb, had a fastmoving, clear style of presentration. It's only Webb's insufferable ego, fed by undeservedly high ratings due to the high number of kneejerk, Bush-hating, non-thinking McDermott style liberals in this town, that gives him the conceit of being the better host of the two of them.

[mac]

Let go of Newsradio 710 KIRO. Just, allow them to, "cycle" like a life of a once popular wine or luxury car.

1. They once were the juggernaut of newsradio/talk stations in the nation.

(Growth)

2. In the late 90s thru 2003, they were rock solid and peaking.

(Maturity)

3. 2004-current

(Decline)

4. They must reinvent themselves.
A. Instead of in-house feature stories, using phoners and live-shots for audio. GO OUT INTO THE FIELD AND FILE.
B. Instead of sitting around doing sidebars and attempting the give a current story legs. GO OUT INTO THE FIELD AND DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH!

KOMO isn't that good, they just give the impression they're working hard, but they file from the studio too.

more later...

[joanie]

Just read the article fully . . .

JDB: news plus fifteen minutes of commercials - isn't that what his producer said?

Deny, deny, deny . . . the best defense is a good offense . . . this all sounds just like the Mike Webb I listened to! Nothing too surprising. Isn't that what the Bush admin. has been doing all along: denying and lying and didn't/haven't a lot of people buy/bought it?

Regarding the decert of the union: I was one of two people who certified a union and it was very needed. But, several years later, I was one who was ready to decert them again because of the cozy relationship with management, excessive union dues and lack of attention to employee needs. I'm not an unreasonable person and actually prefer working to attain a win-win situation, but unions seem to rely on that adversarial relationship during contract times - even though they lie with management the rest of the time! I wonder if the conflict we see at contract time isn't just a bit of a show to let everybody see just how hard they work to keep the pittance they gained for us.

I am pro-union but like in everything corruption seems to take its toll.

Finally, congrats on the publicity for Blatherwatch . . . I'm assuming your hits are up considerably. :)

[joanie]

mac - quickie - don't know if you remember but it seems to me that KING was on top or at least equal to KIRO in the 70s. I remember Monson and Siegel (a liberal then) and was just as bonded to KING as I became to KIRO much later. I think even Larry King was on KING. Seemed to me that KIRO was kind of the housewives' companion station while KING got sort of political. Maybe politics is the undoing of a great station?

Hmmm . . . maybe the cyclical thing.

[Dana]

Oh, joanie, are you and I the only ones who remember the glory days of the old KING 1090? What a lineup!

Pat Cashman and Dori Monson and Lisa Brooks in the morning, then a guy (whose name I don't remember and he and his wife are back in the midwest now), then ... who was the guy who's had a cooking show and became a noontime-to-3 host and then had to quit because he had a stroke? And then 3-6 the obstreperous but always entertaining Rick Miller (who, according to an insider from when Rick worked at KOMO, is certifiable).

Those were the days!

[joanie]

Was it Jim Altoff? I'd forgotten about him. Another great host!

[joanie]

Yeah, he was the food critic for the Times - can't remember his name! I saw it at Bite of Seattle after that and he looked good. Sorry, never caught on to Rick Miller. I thought he was over the top . . . But, loved everybody else! Food critic - John????? :)

[joanie]

John Hinterberger! Restaurant critic! Thanks for the memories, Dana! Hinterberger talked everything and he was liberal!

[Bob in Auburn]

The restuarant reviewer/talk show host was John Hinterberger

Remember the seattle commons idea too?

Funny that you mentioned this trio, I just found my king 1090 christmas card from 1993

Here'swho was in the picture.

drum roll please

Rich Marriot
Dori Monson
Barbra Nombalais
Steve Wexler
Julie Jacobson
Eric Heintz
John Williams
Arik Korman
Andree Beck
Janet Ryan
Lisa Foster
Spince Arbogast
Steve Kelley
John Steen
Rick Miller
Dave Christensen
Andrea DeCou
Bill Taylor
Tony Miner
Drake Collier
Steve Larson
Jack Swanson
John Hinterberer
Alan Ray
Pat Cashman
Jim Althoff

You can still hear Chris Bretcher on am 810 out of sf on the night time skips

Those were the good ole days

WE WANT PRELL back

[joanie]

Bob, Thanks for the tip on Chris Brecher. She left to go back to Puget Sound Univ to become a lawyer. I remember she drove a Subaru . . . it was an on-air topic. (LOL) I will check her out for sure! She was one of the few women I really liked on air. Andy Beck was Althoff's wife. Thanks again!

[sclub]

Mac is right on the money:

"Let go of Newsradio 710 KIRO. Just, allow them to, "cycle" like a life of a once popular wine or luxury car.

1. They once were the juggernaut of newsradio/talk stations in the nation.

(Growth)

2. In the late 90s thru 2003, they were rock solid and peaking.

(Maturity)

3. 2004-current

(Decline)

4. They must reinvent themselves.
A. Instead of in-house feature stories, using phoners and live-shots for audio. GO OUT INTO THE FIELD AND FILE.
B. Instead of sitting around doing sidebars and attempting the give a current story legs. GO OUT INTO THE FIELD AND DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH!

KOMO isn't that good, they just give the impression they're working hard, but they file from the studio too."

[chris]

http://www.classic99.com/althoff.htm

Jim Althoff is in St Louis

I remember when he was on 750 KXL in Portland

[K-Town]

Again, this beef with Webb: time to let go...

[Andrew]

Ya I know that it's news worthy but Mike Webb doesn't warrant any attention. When an otherwise upstanding citizen does something like beats his mother or get's a speeding ticket, that's something to gawk at, but when a person is clearly a walking nut house where is the entertainment value? I'm sure if you could see any further into Mike Webb's private life you'd find yourself thinking there should be limits to our freedoms. Very very little would surprise me at this point.

[JDB]

joanie:

Yeah, I saw how they handled when he had his accident, but they said that he liked to do this often. Figure you go to break at :58, and come out of break at :06, that is your longest off time. Anyone who has sat in front of a mike will tell you that is barely enought time to run to the bathroom. I can't imagine running to my car, getting to a store, and getting checked out in that time.

It is reckless and foolish. And while if you are playing music you can slap down American Pie (my favorite bathroom record), and on some stations, get away with an album side every once in a while late at night, you can't play around like that in talk.

[sparky]

I wonder what Stacey thinks of all this....

[joanie]

What you say is true and I can tell you have more experience in the business than I.

When Michael first posted his piece on Webb, which I cannot find now (and I've looked), I remember reading that Stacy complained about Mike's leaving the station often because she would have to fill in with different devices: songs, commercials, etc. But, he always made it back within a reasonable amount of time so that while it was worrisome, she managed to do it without much notice.

I don't remember if this was posted by Michael or someone else, or if I"m having delusions - LOL! But, it seems that it did come up and that was the take on it.

In any case, you are right in that it was obviously risky.

[chris]

I agree that Webb is paranoid and egotistical, and I can't defend his union busting or the insurance claim, but the problem about the story is most of the accusations are 'off the record' or by Maloney. That to me is the problem of a weekly paper, that their limited resources can have the tendancy to turn into tabloid reading. I like a good gossip story like anyone else, but unless they can pin someone or something credible to Webb leaving the end of his shift early, then this looks like an obsession in which the bigger story of Entercom losing a major market is being lost on the rest of us. His board-op Jeremy,wasn't it, but is not quoted by name. The Seattle Weekly may have done some of the leg work for a future story for the MSM, but couldn't they have identified more of the people behind their quotes?