Media column version 09.23.11

A link to today's media column (linked here) where we refocus efforts to figuring out how the NFL, CBS and KCBS Channel 2 combined to muff the transfer of the Raiders-Bills game to the Chargers-Patriots game last Sunday, along with a review of a new ESPN-made flick about Steve Bartman, the Dodgers' new radio home starting next year and the HBO replay of the Mayweather-Ortiz fight complete with Larry Merchant's promise to beat up the winner in a previous lifetime.

What today's column woefally failed to include: A well-deserved thanks and good luck to Don Barrett, who today wraps up his website, LARadio.com, after 15 years. "I get to do something most radio people aren't able to do when their radio station run ends - say goodbye," he wrote." Today closes the chapter on my fifth career. I have been blessed with numerous journeys - radio, tv, movie marketing, family therapist, and author. ... As John Chancellor said when he left NBC, 'the culture has passed me by.' I have similar feelings about LARadio.com. It's just time." The consolidation of local radio, combined with layoffs and the way Facebook and other social media has allowed his "LARPs" to keep in touch all kind of led to this move.

One of the people Don thanks in his final column: Scott St. James, "The Jammer," one of the original on-air folks at the first real all-sports station in L.A. -- KMPC-AM (710) in the early '90s. Writes Don: "And Scott St. James contributed a thought-provoking column for a time a few years ago. His observations about life were always spot on, or at least feisty enough to provoke conversation. Scott was a superstar in St. Louis before becoming a LARP and tv star. I am at a loss to understand why a general talk or sports station hasn't snagged him for a regular show. Never at a loss for words, Scott is a master storyteller and isn't that what radio is all about."

Don was always a great resource on cross-checking stories that could happen all the time at places like all-sports KSPN-AM (710) or KLAC-AM (570), even KLAA-AM (830). He was always willing to give full credit as well when re-running a note he found. His network of sources were invaluable to keeping up on the weekly flip-flopping of programing, talent and station management changes.

And, above all, he's simply a very nice, stand-up guy.

Don goes down smokin' too -- he also had the not-yet-announced news of the Dodgers' pending radio switch from AM-790 to Clear Channel's AM-570 starting next season, calling it a three-to-five year deal. He's always dialed in.