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WNYE-91.5 flips to racist talk... temporarily

Ike

Ike

What in the heck happened on WNYE this morning? I listen to WFUV's Alternate Side programming on there every morning. This morning, I woke up around 7:15 or 7:20 to some old Israeli guy talking about how Jordan is the real Palestinian state and so all the Palestinians should go there and get out of the West Bank or something like that.

The "interviewer" of the Israeli man was asking leading questions. (I thought maybe WNYE had just glitched and left the overnight broadcast BBC World Service on at first, but quickly it became apparent that this was not the case -- the BBC does not air stuff anything remotely like that.) The old Israeli guy who was inveighing against Ariel Sharon's supposed current alliance with Israel's left wing, so I guess this was some old recorded racism and not new stuff. (Isn't Ariel Sharon out of office? And in a coma?)

I'm not sure how long this was on the air, but at around 7:30 it abruptly switched to The Alternate Side in the middle of a song, and then TAS continued on as usual. It all sounded very clean and not over-modulated or messed up or anything, so I seriously doubt it could be a pirate blasting over top of WNYE. Keep in mind I was listening from Essex County, NJ and WNYE transmits from Manhattan. I would imagine somebody inside WNYE flipped a switch to a not-very-nice old recording, or that's what it sounded like. I double-checked on multiple radios to make sure it was actually 91.5. It was. No mistake.

Very weird. Anybody ever heard of anything like this happening before?
 
I am assuming that the signal was out on WNYE when you tuned in and you picked up 91.1 WFMU which broadcasts the Nachum Segal at that time. He typically has guests on during the 7-8 hour representing the Israeli right, which would be consistent with what you heard.

http://jmintheam.org/
 
No, incorrect. I used a very good digital tuner, put it on 91.5, and got a very clear, clean signal of this weird anti-Palestinian talk. I know what Nachum Segal sounds like and I'd recognize his voice anywhere and this was NOT him or any of his regular associates. (I listen to WFMU all the time, though not a whole lot of JM in the AM since it's not my bag, but Nachum can be entertaining during the fundraising marathons.) I checked to be sure. Segal was doing something entirely different at that time. I flipped back and forth a few times to be 100% certain.
 
WNYE seems to have nothing to offer of a political nature outside of BBC and Diane Rehm though they do broadcast Leon Charney every Thursday and he has Israeli guests with a variety of perspectives. Do you think that someone accidently plugged that show in, then realized their error and quickly replaced it with The Alternative Side or maybe there was a problem with a feed from WFUV and all they had to replace it with was Charney. That show typically broadcasts old programs which would explain the Ariel Sharon reference. My next thought would be that you stumbled upon a pirate (those low frequencies tend to attract them).
 
I have never heard the Leon Charney show, but I certainly hope he would not bow and scrape to this extremist as this interviewer was doing. But that sounds more likely than any other explanation I've found so far. At first I speculated that an extremist working the boards at WNYE intentionally put this on the air to spread his views, but that would not be likely to explain the outdated nature of the material.

As for pirates, there are plenty of pirates in Brooklyn, but I have never heard one that could reach Essex County, NJ, nor I have heard one broadcasting directly over the top of an already-powerful legitimate frequency. They usually slip into the frequency cracks like 90.9 or 89.7. Also, most of them sound over-modulated or shoddy in some way; this was clear and clean.
 
This is the first time in years that WNYE goes to racism talk which is ridiculous to air. The first thing that happened in the 1980's when two of the overrated jocks Hank Hayes and Jim Nazium was running WHOT at night after WNYE signed off at night and playing oldies that CBS-FM did at the time along with lousy phone calls and conversations. It was like an oldies/talk format. I have airchecks from WHOT in the 1980's when it was on 91.5 where Hank & Jim did an all-night oldies party. I listened to it on my iPod and it was good. The jocks were bad, the callers are bad and those jingles and sweepers are terrible. WHOT was a pirate station at 91.5 back in the 1980's when it hacked into WNYE's frequency. Too bad it pulled the plug during the 4th of July weekend of 1989 after the FCC got busted.
 
Ike said:
What in the heck happened on WNYE this morning? I listen to WFUV's Alternate Side programming on there every morning. This morning, I woke up around 7:15 or 7:20 to some old Israeli guy talking about how Jordan is the real Palestinian state and so all the Palestinians should go there and get out of the West Bank or something like that.

The "interviewer" of the Israeli man was asking leading questions. (I thought maybe WNYE had just glitched and left the overnight broadcast BBC World Service on at first, but quickly it became apparent that this was not the case -- the BBC does not air stuff anything remotely like that.) The old Israeli guy who was inveighing against Ariel Sharon's supposed current alliance with Israel's left wing, so I guess this was some old recorded racism and not new stuff. (Isn't Ariel Sharon out of office? And in a coma?)

I'm not sure how long this was on the air, but at around 7:30 it abruptly switched to The Alternate Side in the middle of a song, and then TAS continued on as usual. It all sounded very clean and not over-modulated or messed up or anything, so I seriously doubt it could be a pirate blasting over top of WNYE. Keep in mind I was listening from Essex County, NJ and WNYE transmits from Manhattan. I would imagine somebody inside WNYE flipped a switch to a not-very-nice old recording, or that's what it sounded like. I double-checked on multiple radios to make sure it was actually 91.5. It was. No mistake.

Very weird. Anybody ever heard of anything like this happening before?
Click to expand...

I'm not going to get into a long political discussion about this. That said, if he only suggested that Jordan is home to the Palestinians, he's not incorrect. Jordan is a Palestinian state as the word is defined today. Racist? I think that's a bit overstated. Maybe this is his idea for regional peace. If so he's not in a position to do anything about it but talk on the radio. From what you described there was no name calling nor was there any real or threatened physical harm done to anyone. You may or may not agree with his statements but I'd hardly define them as racist or bigoted if you quoted him correctly. How racist is it when Palestinian leaders threaten to push the Jews into the sea? If I were as concerned as you appear to be I'd call WNYE and ask for an explanation. Maybe you'll find out what really happened and what the real context was.
 
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