By Michael Miner
There’s been trouble in the Ninth Congressional District, reported Susan Dodge and Fran Spielman. Allegations of pilfered campaign signs were flying. “The Schakowsky campaign said a field coordinator videotaped a city transportation employee last week walking away from a business in the 1400 block of West Devon Avenue carrying Schakowsky signs,” they wrote. Jerry Morrison, campaign manager for Janice Schakowsky, told the Sun-Times that more than 800 Schakowsky signs had been removed.
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We compared notes to make sure my tape was a duplicate of hers. Yes, we’d both seen a man carry a sign to a car. We’d each squeezed the freeze-frame button when the name on the sign could be read. The sign said “Pappas.”
I called Morrison a second time to let him know there was a problem with his smoking gun. “Oh, was that a Pappas sign?” he said blithely. “I’ve moved beyond that. The signs are the least of my problems.”
Malatia’s explanations and reflections appeared in the February 20 Hot Type and were read by the folks at Whad’Ya Know? Soon producer Chris Bannon and I were talking by telephone. He read to me from a 1995 report. “In other words,” said the “audience crossover analysis” prepared for Public Radio International by the Radio Research Consortium, “Car Talk listeners are more likely to listen to Whad’Ya Know? than average listeners to stations that carry WYK. The two programs work well together.”
Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me is an NPR creation. But WBEZ signed on as coproducer, and the show originates in Chicago. WBEZ has a vested interest in the show’s success, and it’s no surprise that Malatia can trot out a set of numbers that contradicts Bannon’s.
Said Bannon, “I think you could certainly go into the esoterics of radio numerology very carefully. But the overall impression our audience seems to have, and other people who program our show seem to have, is that it belongs next to Car Talk.”
