Posted by Mike Biel on July 22, 1998 at 12:00:39:
I have two things to add to the story on the site.
During the first Annenburg Hall year I sent in tapes of "The Record Shelf" that were aired weekly on WRTI-FM. Our Spring quarter at Northwestern ended earlier than Temple's semister, and since I was going home to New Jersey for a visit, I told Jerry Klein that I could come in and do my last show of the year live from Annenberg Hall. It would be a chance to actually have done a broadcast from the new building.
I got a note back from him: Sorry, I don't know how to tell you this easily, but the station is going all-jazz and your show (along with just about everything else) has been cancelled.
I thought it was a practical joke. I mean, for years we had kidded that WRTI should go all-rock or all-news. And after all, I was doing this to try to do a show from the new building--and ha ha you can't do it.
But it was no April Fool's joke. Or maybe it was. At least it seems to have been originated by an April Fool. (Not you, Jerry, I know it wasn't your fault!)
The other thing I have to add concerns how the station developed during the next few years. The ending comments about how you might be lucky to get a newscast is an oversimplification of the race war that developed in the station in the next few years. There was a major article in Philadelphia magazine about it, and I think we should get permission to mount it on the site. It is must reading for everyone. It will shock you if you haven't heard what happened in the early 70s there. And it is something that the current administration should also read. It will tell them why some of us are still angry.