Editor,
Last week KX 93.5 became involved with local politics in a major way. We hosted an on-air, interactive forum for the four City Council candidates, and we hosted a Q&A with Laguna Beach school board candidates Howard Hills and Jan Vickers.
As one might expect with politics, both of these segments had their controversies.
During Sunday’s school board conversation, our volunteer host, Thor Erickson, asked candidate Hills to state his opinion on Common Core and explain whether his past record of donating to Congressman Dana Rohrabacher or his political activism would influence his opinion or his ability to hold a non-partisan office. This led to Hills becoming increasingly frustrated and telling our host that he was out of line with his questioning.
During Monday’s City Council forum, our moderator, Billy Fried, opened the segment by addressing what he called the “elephant” in the room. He asked candidate Judie Mancuso if she could point to a specific example of Mayor Steve Dicterow’s recently documented financial troubles causing him to not do his job as a councilperson effectively. Mancuso responded that she wasn’t prepared to comment on that.
Both of these incidents have caused backlash. Mr. Hills tells me he can’t trust KX 93.5 anymore. One Mancuso supporter tells me our moderator was “condescending, rude, and borderline sexist,” and that she no longer wants to support KX 93.5 and hopes we are short-lived.
Ok, whoa. Let’s take a step back here.
I defend both of our moderators’ questions. No ethics are in question, no FCC violations occurred, and our moderators did their homework. If a candidate can’t answer effectively, wouldn’t a voter want to know that? If a candidate is going to lose his temper on live radio, wouldn’t a voter want to know that he is capable of that?
Radio is the only platform that would reveal those actions. Anger or unwillingness to answer would not be evident with the words “no comment” in a print story. So, for that, I am proud that our town has a medium that can host these types of unfiltered conversations during election season. It’s the beauty of live radio.
Myself, our staff, and our 100+ volunteer hosts are committed to being a voice of our town, even if that can sometimes be divisive.
Tyler Russell, Laguna Beach
it is redundant for a radio station to give a blow by blow of their past aire time , it is a tell on their statistically low subscriber ratings.
Maybe it would be best suited for an easy listening instead of talk radio.
The desperate and the thin-skinned on Laguna’s only FM station. Thank you for being fair-minded enough to allow these angry, not-ready-for-prime-time candidates have their say. Keep up the good work, KX 93.5!
These candidates are only angry because they are embarrassed.