Article about Air America MN and Nick Coleman in today's Strib

[Oreo]

Janet Robert (the owner of the station) is known to be anti-abortion and it looks like Nick had enough of it even though she denies censorship.

http://www.startribune.com/stories/389/5563931.html

Nick Coleman quits radio show; censorship claim disputed
Eric Black, Star Tribune
August 17, 2005 COLEMAN0817


Nick Coleman, the Star Tribune columnist who hosted a radio talk show on the Twin Cities Air America affiliate station, has quit his radio gig because the station owner tried to control the political content of his show, according to Coleman. Janet Robert, owner and manager of KTNF-AM-950, says she never censored Coleman.

Coleman said Robert tried to ban the station's talk show hosts from discussing abortion, gay marriage and gun control. Over the spring and early summer, he said, Robert was "increasingly determined to have every word broadcast over her air reflect her thinking."

Robert ran for Congress in 2002 as a Democrat but did not embrace the party's liberal positions on abortion and gun issues.

"How can you have a radio station that claims to be liberal and progressive that is owned and micromanaged by someone who is neither?" Coleman said. And how can a liberal talk show host defend the liberal side of the political argument, he added, if he is barred from discussing some of the most prominent positions on which liberals are attacked?

--more--

[Minnesota Raindog]

1. 6th District Democrats had enough of Robert in 2002

That's why she pulled only 35% of the vote against Mark Kennedy--11% less than Patty Wetterling did two years later against incumbent Kennedy.

[jean]

2. glad to see it in the paper. Robert needs to continue ownership of

the station but get over herself as manager.

It's wonderful she had the big bucks to fund the station (however that works) but she is hurting liberal/progressive efforts by controlling the message and stifling debate.