Topic: public speaker - KRFC SIGNS OFF ON HIGHTOWER - Rocky Mountain Chronicle

But time is precious on the radio waves, and the KRFC news team has decided they no longer have enough of it for Jim Hightower’s daily political commentary. Hightower, a national radio commentator, public speaker and former Texas agriculture commissioner, is also an author, with titles like Let’s Stop Beating Around the Bush and If the Gods Had Meant Us to Vote, They Would Have Given Us Candidates . As the Larimer County Democratic Party prepares to host Hightower as a keynote speaker at its annual fundraising dinner in March, KRFC’s move to eliminate his segment resonates with political overtones. But Chris Kennison, KRFC’s interim station manager, says Hightower’s anticipated local appearance is totally unrelated to the news team’s decision. For Laura Ehrlich, Hightower’s research and communications director, taking the radio segment off the air to foster the appearance of being “fair and balanced” rings false, especially considering the political climate on American radio. On the airwaves, however, programming from a liberal perspective has tended to get shuffled around or outright eliminated in recent years, including “Alternative Radio,” Free Speech Radio News and “Counterspin,” which have been removed from KRFC’s public-affairs and news lineups. read more

Tags: krfc, radio, news, public speaker, hightowerrsquos, political