Where Can People in Iron County Find a Voice?

I was listening to radio station WIKB's "Telephone Time"
program this morning when some old sounding soul
got on the air with Kurt Paro. Among the first words
out of this man's mouth was the word "Medicare" at
which point Kurt cut the line and said something like
"you're not going to get away with that." The average
listener had no idea, from the few words uttered by
this older sounding man, what he was going to say.

I don't listen frequently enough to know whether the
caller has been a regular troublemaker, but I have
listened enough, and talked to enough local people, to
know that Kurt typically quickly censors political any
conversation whenever he's the host on the show,
which is most of the time.

Four things spring immediately to mind as a result.

1) This is an election year with the mood in the USA
is one of great political unrest and a desire for
conversation.

2) Where and how can the people of Iron County voice
their concerns? The local newspaper, The Iron County
Reporter (which I consider a social rag supporting the
local old-crony network and oligarchy) uses a significantly
heavy hand in deciding what they permit to be published,
whether it is on the opinion page or even in paid ads. For
example, the last paid ad I put in the paper was published
in a tiny, almost unreadable, font surrounded by a terrific
amount of white space, typical Iron County corruption at
work. And they actually had the nerve to take my money
and treat me like that.

We have little voice there, unless you're lining up behind
the people who run municipal or county government.
The radio station apparently affords no voice at all unless
it is something people want to buy/sell/give-away or a
paid commercial unless it is something approved by the
local oligarchy.

3) Our Iron County population is aging more quickly than
the rest of the nation, because our young people mostly
can't afford to live here with limited to no job opportunities.
As such, we're significantly interested in hearing anything
and everything about Medicare.

4) While a commercial business like WIKB has a right to
establish the guidelines for what will and will not be permitted
to air, they haven't published that or taken the trouble to
provide notice to the listeners what's fair game.

It seems to me that in a 15 or 30 second announcement once
or twice a week the station could do that, and people wouldn't
hang on for 30 minutes to get on the air only to have Kurt
(shouldn't that be spelled curt?) hang up on them in 5 seconds
or less. Come on, Kurt, fair is fair, and hanging up on a man
like you did today wasn't fair or reasonable.

I'm providing a copy of this article to Mr. Mark Eakin, the
General Manager at WIKB, tomorrow morning. All the
folks at WIKB need to remember that the only reason for
their success is listeners, and satisfying the listeners needs.
Maybe WIKB should think about having someone host a
political call in show for a few hours a week. Or think about
setting aside a fixed half hour time slot of Telephone Time a
few times a week dedicated to political discussion!

If the people of Iron County aren't given a voice somewhere,
they'll eventually find one, and it might end up being one
that WIKB and the Iron County Reporter (more merged
than not these days) don't like.

Frankly I don't care where it is the people find a voice,
I'll support it, so long as they have a voice.

Bill Vajk