The Heated Political Talk of Akron

It's not like Media-Com Akron market talker WNIR/100.1 has not provoked public officials before.

But Summit County executive James McCarthy was apparently rankled by evening host Tom Erickson's discussion of a controversial job appointment...so much so that he picked up the phone and called Erickson's show Tuesday night to defend the hiring of county animal control director Christine Congrove.

We haven't followed this closely, but the hiring of the 23 year-old former secretary at the dog pound - who just conveniently happens to be the daughter of a county council member - seems quite a good fit for talk radio. Talk radio hosts who cover local government drool over stuff like this.

The Beacon Journal thought it so notable that they ran what is nearly an plug on Ohio.com for Erickson's show tonight, where the WNIR host replayed the "sometimes heated" 40 minute long McCarthy call "in segments". The newspaper has been covering the questions surrounding Congrove's hiring for weeks, which could explain their interest in the call to the radio station...

UPDATE: 6/15/06 1:10 PM - The Beacon Journal's Thursday article on this has some choice quotes from the radio interview, which came as a result of McCarthy's unsolicited call to the WNIR talk lines.

And one other small detail we didn't know - Erickson's daughter is local "animal rights advocate" Heather Nagel, who's been a vocal critic of the Congrove hire. In fact, McCarthy's interview apparently ended by accident, when Erickson attempted to conference Nagel with McCarthy...