© 2024 254 North Front Street, Suite 300, Wilmington, NC 28401 | 910.343.1640
News Classical 91.3 Wilmington 92.7 Wilmington 96.7 Southport
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
CAPE FEAR MEMORIAL BRIDGE CLOSURE: UPDATES, RESOURCES, AND CONTEXT

Friday Feedback for August 19, 2016

Abby Saunders of Hampstead wrote: "After hearing Isabelle Shepherd's story on Trump's rally in Wilmington [last week], I feel compelled to share my disappointment with the use of the adjective "lighthearted" to describe Governor McCrory's inappropriate joke about bathrooms during his speech. Certainly, all who are negatively impacted by HB2, as well as all who are in marked disagreement with a bill that violates human rights, would disagree that a joke referencing the bill is cheerful or happy-go-lucky. Thank you for your time.”

Thank you, Abby. The adjective “light-hearted” was meant to refer to Governor’s McCrory’s delivery of what he clearly seemed to feel was a joking remark before a supportive audience. It is not our role, nor was it intended to be a commentary on the gravitas (or lack thereof) of the subject matter.

And speaking of candidate Trump: one listener posted a screen shot from the story on our website which seemed to show a sarcastic epithet instead of Donald Trump’s name. We told the listener that we don’t see any way that that image could have originated with us. Lo and behold, leave it to Rachel Lewis Hilburn to find the probable answer. There is a Google Chrome extension that replaces every instance of “Donald Trump” with another name. We now believe the anomaly arose from the writer’s own computer!

Listener Miles wrote:

Please get rid of Car Talk. Pretty please.

First of all, thank you for the politeness, Miles. Please let me try to clarify as definitively as I can where we stand on that issue. I don’t intend to read every Feedback letter on the subject, because while there are passionate critics of the show, there are also those who (admittedly, perhaps with milder emotions) still enjoy it.

National data suggests that the program still has the capacity to draw millions of people and is in the top tier of listener favorites. Producers have informed stations that the show will cease in September 2017. We don’t see any reason not to keep to that timetable.

I do marvel at the difference between comments that say “I hate that show, so I won’t listen” vs. ones that say “I hate that show, so take it off the air.” Everyone has a right to their opinion, but a really good way to avoid things you hate is to turn the radio off – or, better, turn over to Classical HQR. Thanks for writing to us.

[AUDIO CLIP]

ELISE: We’re just calling to say how much we enjoy this radio station. My grandma Carol Ann and I have listened to it nonstop.
Carol Ann: Mr. Workmon, I’m Carol Ann, Elise’s grandmother, and we just wanted to tell you how absolutely amazed and thrilled we were to discover your station. We never heard more consistently beautiful music for hours and hours as we drove around Wilmington and Wrightsville Beach and Carolina Beach and Fort Fisher. It was on constantly; every time we turned it on, it was magnificent music. I have NEVER heard such beautiful classical music, consistently, as I did.

Jim Downey of the Sea Turtle project wrote:

Big thank you to whomever decides which events to announce on the cultural calendar. We had 3 groups of people come to our event that heard about us on WHQR. They may never have found out about us otherwise. We raised a bunch of money for http://www.seaturtleproject.org. Thanks again!

We’d love to hear from you on Friday Feedback. You can always leave a message via email to feedback@WHQR.org. Our Feedback Phone is 910-292-9477. And thanks for your feedback.