William “Bill” O”™Shaughnessy, the white-maned, perpetually sockless head honcho at Whitney Media, has been a fixture in Westchester County media for more than 50 years.
The company”™s flagship station, WVOX 1460AM, was originally launched to “prop up” the now-defunct city daily newspaper The New York Herald-Tribune but remains the only locally owned independent radio station in the area (Whitney Media got its name from the family of the Herald-Tribune”™s last owner, John Hay Whitney).
“I”™ve always said radio, local radio, is like Lazarus,” he said. “Television didn”™t kill it and the Internet didn”™t kill it yet ”“ yet.” He pronounces the dash for emphasis.
- William O”™Shaughnessy. Photo courtesy WVOX
I host a weekly show on the station and recently visited O”™Shaughnessy in his New Rochelle office, decorated with photos of the chairman mugging with New York politicians like his hero, Mario Cuomo, and Nelson Rockefeller. We discussed the state of the media and if there is a future for news as companies struggle to keep their heads above water.
Are we doomed in Westchester in terms of getting our news?
The public will always have an insatiable appetite for the great issues of the day and for what”™s going on in our home heath. Or, I should say, those with roots in the community will want information. I am less than sure about the yuppies who are abroad in the land these days and have never learned an instinct for community.
Are they taking over the county?
I think you have only to walk down the main street in Rye or Larchmont or Bronxville to answer that question.
On if an independent radio station can survive today:
If a radio station aspires to be more than a jukebox, it”™s got a shot even in this high-tech, speeded-up day and age. We endorse candidates, we have a plethora of open-line programs. As David Hinckley, the critic-at-large, said (of WVOX), “it”™s a glorious hodgepodge ”¦ much of which even O”™Shaughnessy can”™t get excited about.”
The companies and the entities that have roots in the community that go beyond the ROI (return on investment) will always support local media if it”™s local. Most radio stations have fallen to absentee owners and speculators and they today resemble jukeboxes but I”™ve always believed a radio station cannot just be the modern day equivalent of a smoke signal sending information or a teletype machine.
The cookie cutter thing doesn”™t work. ”¦ The glorious hodgepodge has my son”™s heavy metal show (Matt O”™Shaughnessy hosts “Metal Mayhem”), the most God-awful music but I”™m very proud he”™s kept it going for 30 years thanks to your help and other crazy people. We have three Muslim programs. The Mount Vernon gangs ”“ the Mount Vernon youth gangs ”“ have a program.
You also have (Caribbean FM station) WVIP. Do you think WVOX would be sustainable as a news or community outlet without that other side of the business?
I think they work together, they complement each other. WVOX”™s stock and trade are the townies ”“ and for me, that”™s a term of great respect, it”™s not a pejorative term, people with roots in the community. WVIP gives voice to the emerging, new Americans. Caribbean, West Indian.
On the difficulties in covering news in Westchester:
Think about how different Waccabuc is from Mount Vernon, think of how different Bronxville is from Yonkers where true love conquers. ”¦ So how do you offer a product ”¦ cover such a disparate area? You have in Westchester the homeless of the night. And then you have vast wealth in Bedford and Pound Ridge and Waccabuc. How do you produce a journalism that does justice to all those disparate neighborhoods? That”™s the real test, how do you do that? We try to do it with the glorious hodgepodge.
On the last day of the Herald-Tribune in 1966:
I was there at the death of a newspaper. I was there when John Hay Whitney”™s big, old green Cadillac ”“ they called it the Green Hornet ”“ came down, I think it was 44th Street. And earlier that day a fax had come up from the Washington Bureau ”¦ (that) said “death be not proud.”
And I happened to be there with my former father-in-law, the late Walter Nelson Thayer, who was president of the Herald-Tribune. But I was there and I remember Jimmy Breslin screaming at the cleaning ladies. And I remember Walter “Red” Smith trying to light a cigarette with trembling hands as they sounded the death knell for a newspaper.
And then we went downstairs ”¦ to Bleeck”™s and some of the old writers and rewrite men they were settling up their bar bill. The death of a newspaper is a bad story. I don”™t want to ever cover that again.
