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Why Ken Matthews’ show was terminated at WHP580 AM

In 2013 or 2014, radio personality Ken Matthews followed the late and great gravelly voiced, cowboy hat wearing, hard charging, chiseled face long time prime time radio host Bob Durgin here on Harrisburg, PA’s WHP580. While Bob frequently talked about the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s most recent ridiculous and pointless regulation that had squashed Mabel’s farm stand, or that had SWAT raided some little girl’s lemonade stand, which, believe me, all resonated here in Central PA, Ken Matthews brought a broader and more general American government policy discussion.

Like most conservative talk show hosts today, Matthews hit the daily or weekly zeitgeist of subjects and issues, from the global warming/ global cooling/ global whatever hoax to regional politics to the 2020 stolen election. But when he first arrived, it was clear that Matthews was working hard to impress the radio station engineers. And it was clear that they were making him work at it, because his first few months on air were a little tense. Listeners could feel that tension, and it seemed that Matthews might just be a fly-by.

Eventually, Matthews and WHP580 engineer Art Selby hit their rhythm, and the show took off. When he first arrived in town, I did some amateur on-the-ground citizen reporting “live from the Perry County court house!” for Ken. I frequently called in to the show or sent an email, either of which Ken would almost always take on air. After all, I have been involved in politics and culture battles for a long time, and I try to offer substance. And for a long time it felt like I, too, had a quiet, good rhythm with Ken Matthews.

But then somewhere around 2019 Ken changed. He became more popular, more self-aware, more self-important. He did some radio shows for Rush Limbaugh, and suddenly Ken’s on- air voice changed. His personality changed. His patience with callers changed. His voice was clipped. He sounded snooty. It was obvious that Ken Matthews was awfully proud of Ken Matthews, and that he looked down on just about everyone. Because he was important, ya know.

My last interaction with Ken was mid-January, 2021, I think when his radio show became nationally syndicated and Ken was feeling especially very important. While I was on a long drive returning a car trailer to a garage in rural Centre County from Harrisburg, a very low, unimportant-person kind of thing to do…I suppose. Below are the screen shots from our emails that immediately followed my being on hold for half of Ken’s entire three hour show. What was so important at my end? Well, I wanted to share with Ken and his listeners my own law-abiding experience in Washington, DC, on January 6th. It was exactly the kind of call-in Ken used to take, about a subject he was covering.

I actually ended up staying on hold just because I was fascinated at the technology at play. My truck’s own AM radio had long since lost contact with WHP580, but here I was clearly connected via a tenuous but unbroken cell phone call. Driving across the lightless, deep darkness that is rural Central PA in winter time, hearing WHP580’s on-hold show through my bluetooth connection made me feel a bit like an astronaut floating way out in space, far from Earth, yet with a very slight connection to the Houston control room back home. It was both fascinating and a little assuring.

As you can see from the emails below, Ken’s snarky, disrespectful responses showed he relished keeping me on hold. He was enjoying being mean. I don’t know why he didn’t just get on the phone with me during a radio break and say that he didn’t want to talk about January 6th, or why he didn’t simply ask call screener Art Selby to come back on and tell me they were not going to take it (Art had told me they would take the call) (And why not just send a normal email response that says “I am sorry you think that”). Instead, Ken enjoyed being a jerk, even and especially when someone he knew was a loyal follower told him he was. Ken’s sense of personal power and self importance took over his brain. Making people feel badly made Ken feel good.

And that is exactly what got Ken’s nationwide radio show canned two weeks ago. Ken Matthews’ ever increasing on-air arrogance eventually overrode his professionalism so egregiously that he was terminated on the spot. His behavior has been called a “slip-up,” a hot mic moment etc. But the actual truth is Ken Matthews had long since cared little about what other people thought or think, because he had become way too important.

While I felt stung that January night on my way up north, my desire for revenge against Ken for treating me like a jerk was gone a few hours later, by the time I got back to Harrisburg late that night. Afterwards, I never called or wrote in to the radio show, and only quite infrequently listened to it. Because let’s face it, Mark Steyn, Mark Levin, and a bunch of other radio hosts all do pretty much the same format and content. And listeners can hear pretty much the same thing, without having to listen to Ken Matthews’ self-important, arrogant voice grating on your ears.

It had been my long time loyalty to local station WHP580, and the occasional local story flavor, that had kept me listening to Ken Matthews for several years, during his transition to “stardom” and then after he had become an all-out on-air jerk. All that shred of loyalty ended with the email exchange below in January 2021.

So I am not happy that Ken Matthews got his come-uppance. But boy, did he need it. And he earned it. Hopefully he learns from this experience, but it is doubtful he will.

 

 

A breezy summer day

One of my most enduring happy memories is actually not just one distinct moment, it is the aggregated beautiful summer days of my central Pennsylvania farm country youth.

As far as I can recall, Happy Valley did not get much sunshine throughout the year. Our glum, overcast days stretched from Fall through Spring. Instead, we saved up every drop of sun for June, July and August. These summers were sunny, usually gently breezy days, with mostly blue skies and flitting clouds, occasional sun showers, temperatures in the 70s and maybe 80s.

A trip to Whipple Dam State Park or a local swimming hole would cure the worst of the heat.

Perhaps youthful memories are clouded by adult cynicism, or more likely, by adult rose-tinted glasses. We prefer in our old age to recall only the good times and bury the rest. That is possible here when it comes to recalling the perfect summer weather of my youth.

However, it is also a scientific fact that Planet Earth is getting really close to having its polarities flip. Very close. As those polarities get close to switching (magnetically speaking, the North Pole becomes the South Pole and vice versa), Planet Earth’s magnetic shield gets weak. So weak that a lot of ultraviolet rays get through to the surface, and our skin, thereby heating things up.

It is one of the reasons for sun burns worse than usual and for really hot, windy weather over the past twenty-five years. It is a fact that some plant and animal species have been moving northward, too, as northern climes warm up, even ever so slightly.

Earth’s magnetic field acts as a filter for harmful UV and other cosmic rays. Our magnetic field is one of the reasons Planet Earth has life on it. When it gets weak, our own experience outside changes.

After a very wet and rainy Spring, we are now experiencing some easy-sleeping cool evenings, and breezy, gently sunny days. The kind we have not seen in decades.

What a wonderful feeling.

If I go in the back yard and work in the garden, and close my eyes, I am transported back to the wondrous summer days of my childhood. They were colored by the ultra-green environment that surrounded me, too, I admit that.

It is doubtful these perfect days in the 70s, with a refreshingly gentle breeze, will last much longer. After all, the poles have not yet fully flipped and returned Earth to where its magnetic shield was much earlier in my life. But I am reminded of how it used to be, and how pleasant it was.

Aaaahhh…summer time, central PA style.