Comments

1
"Now, when you exited KUOW, as you did, in a sudden manner, uh, did it feel to you, like, as though, you had been pushed out, suddenly, in a manner that was sudden, or did was it more like a slow and not-sudden exit from KUOW, where you recently exited from?"
"I--"
"Now when I say recently, I mean your exit from KUOW in the last week, not, of course, your, uh, daily exit, from, that is, the physical KUOW studios, where you recently exited, in a permanent sense, from your employment there."
"Well--"
"Of course, the exit may not be truly permanent, as we are both aware, you and I, both aware of it, but it seems to be indefinite for the moment, at least, that is to say, it isn't temporary. When an unforeseen exit like this occurs, how does it, that is to say, the exit, make you and your colleagues, that is, your former KUOW colleagues at KUOW, feel about the situation?"
"We--"
"Does it make you feel frustrated? Or angry?"
2
Glad that Cliff Mass is back
3
Scher's exit is almost enough to tempt me to start listening to KUOW again.

Almost...
4
I know there's a lot of Steve Scher hate on SLOG, but I always found him to be a good interviewer. The national show that replaced Weekday, however, is unlistenable. As a result, more of my "public radio money" now goes to KEXP, not KUOW.
5
@2 i doubt cliff mass will be back - KPLU snatched him up after his "dismissal" from KUOW by SS
6
Cliff Mass' ego has only grown larger since his ouster. No need to bring him back.
7
And... just Wednesday the Seattle school district adopted a new math curriculum that Cliff Mass had been advocating for for years.

Coincidence?!? I think not.
8
Writing was on the wall the minute they put Steve into that Great! New! Afternoon mishmash of not much in particular. Mostly reused news stories and some lame "in the field" update to freshen the news. Like when a pop station sets up a tent in a parking lot and spins tunz. You just knew Scher was balking big time behind the scenes to the programming changes.

Someone at KUOW best find a way to keep the Friday journalist news roundup at 11 going. Or I am heading for KPLU. And bringing Mass back would be just fine. Has the weather information improved with Mass being gone? Hell no. They're going to throw money at him to return, though.
9
Actually, he posted the announcement to Facebook before he sent that tweet:

https://facebook.com/story.php?story_fbi…
11
Good riddance!
12
So long there you hypocritical prima donna. Will miss the good interviewing chops but the self centered off topic opinions not so much.
13
excellent. If Prof Cliff Mass returns now (that it's safe) i'll instantly re-start my donations to KUOW.
14
Shit-canning that off-topic, motor mouth Cliff Mass was the best thing Steve did.
15
@1 - Spot on.
16
This being the 21st century, you can't keep an egoist from expressing themselves via the interwebs. I'm sure SS will soon be broadcasting from his mom's basement, but it will be less Wayne Campbell and more Rupert Pupkin.
17
Maybe let the Cliff Mass stuff go, people. Clearly, it's not about Cliff. He's been gone for years now, and he was only a minor contributor while he was there.

Someone pissed someone off to cause Scher to resign (or "resign") on the spot. That's where the story is.
18
LMAO @1, posted three minutes flat after Brissey put this up.
19
I'm not letting the Cliff Mass thing go. Scher handled that in about the worst way possible.

I don't dislike Steve Scher, but I'm not exactly sad to see him leave and I wish him well.
20
i'm still recovering from scher's hideously inane interview with cornel west a few years back. this is, quite possibly, one of the better things to happen to the city in quite some time.
21
i'm still recovering from scher's hideously inane & awkward interview with cornel
west a few years ago...

scher's exit may be proof that gawd exists. probably not, but it's bloody good news.
22
didn't intend to post twice. now three times. i really scher'd this up.
23
@17 what an odd admonition. we miss Cliff. we want him back, we don't want to "let him go" (and proudly have the memory for better things even more than "years" ago). Prof Mass wasn't likely to return while Scher was there. Scher is gone now. as to what "it's about" most of us have the capacity to entertain several items in parallel.

So please proceed with your "the story" and allow us to consider ours.
24
Agreed, @1 FTW.

25
Hat tip to #16 for the Rupert Pupkin reference.
26
Fwiw: Scher, not everyone here dislikes you. Best wishes.
27
@26, good parody doesn't always mean dislike—see celebrity roasts, White House Correspondents Dinner, etc. (though I can't speak specifically for @1). I've listened to KUOW quite a bit over the years, and also wish Steve the best.
28
Such a harsh group of people.

Scher was a bit too Seattle for my taste...too eager to support our liberal pieties and lack of critical edge. Too soft, too rounded. Too PCC and "sustainability" and being nice.

But he wasn't a bad interviewer at all -- his problem is that he reflected Seattle too accurately!
29
Perfect @1. Perfect.
30
Steve is a fantastic interviewer and a principled journalist. Doing live radio every day is hard work. No one does it better.
31
I absolutely don't understand the comments about Scher's great interviewing skills. I never heard him when he wasn't embarrassingly unprepared and seemingly devoid of genuine curiosity about the subject. He just got through the hour with casual conversation - like someone doing a really good job of feigning interest at a cocktail party. Scher was the muzak of KUOW daytime programming. When I think about those same guests in the hands of a truly skilled interviewer (Maron? Anyone else at KUOW?)...well, spilled milk and good riddance.

Sorry for the vitriol, but Scher's waste of the airwaves is the only topic I've ever felt strongly enough to post about. This is a big news day for me!
32
@27 i do think he's a singularly awful interviewer, but i also acknowledge that live radio is tough to do well. i am glad that he will not be on KUOW anymore, but i wish him well for the future
33
I don't hate Scher. He always sounded like he was probably a pretty nice person.

But I did think he was a pretty inept interviewer. And he was woefully out of touch with just about anyone under the age of 30. He clearly meant well, but his fumbling style had me doing eye rolls whenever I listened to him. I honestly wish him well in whatever he does in the future, but replacing at KUOW can only be an improvement.
34
Steve was an awful unprepared interviewer. Epitomized the mediocrity of KUOW. For a large market NPR station KUOW consistently underperforms.
35
@1, you should have used the word "notion" in there, somewhere. Otherwise, accurate.

And by all means, it just wouldn't be Friday morning without listening to Knute Berger gulp/clear his throat. Ya, gotta keep that going.
36
Seemed like a nice guy, from what little I knew of him. But he was easily the worst, least prepared professional interviewer I've ever heard.
37
As long as they stop the gardening segments. North of the Ship Canal middle aged divorcees, with either short or long grey hair, talking about trimming their bushes for an hour.
38
KUOW2 has tons of great shows. Too bad they eliminated the FM station for it years ago, and is now HD-radio and online only.
41
Goldy and Dan Savage will share the mic in his stead.
42
@4 / DOUG
I know there's a lot of Steve Scher hate on SLOG, but I always found him to be a good interviewer. The national show that replaced Weekday, however, is unlistenable. As a result, more of my "public radio money" now goes to KEXP, not KUOW.
But of course you know that KEXP is owned by the U of W, and broadcasts from the same studios as KOUW?
43
@ 40 (Sgt Racist) -
a caller with a pronounced NY-Jewish accent (in other words, one of Sher's own tribe) ...
Wow. Just wow.
44
sgt_doom is channeling Donald Sterling's Jackassery

45
I thought he was a great interviewer, and he has a good sense of humor. But the new programming (or lack thereof) on KUOW is awful, and I can understand if he actually quit because of it. Or made such a fuss about it that they canned him. I'll bet Marcie Sillman and others don't like it either.
46
@42: KUOW and KEXP do not share studios. Or funding.
47
Having appeared on the air w/Scher twice over the years, I rebut the notion that he was unprepared or not a good interviewer. In my cases at least he was quite prepared and had a relaxed conversational style that made me forget we were doing a show as opposed to just having a conversation. Maybe that's what people didn't like?

Don't get me started about Ross Reynolds though...or what KUOW does to All Things Considered. I gave up listening to their stream of ATC a year or so ago due to their constant slicing and dicing of the program.
48
Steve Scher is awesome. All you haters out there suck. He was a great interviewer and a class act journalist.
49
YAY!!!!!!!! This is a good day. Now I will consider supporting KUOW again.
50
Meh, you want scuttlebutt, cover the firing of the KPLU general manager a little while ago. There was shouting, histrionics, the whole nine. He wanted to end the jazz programming (which would be fine with me, but the whole identity of the station is based on it) and go head-to-head with KUOW.

Unfortunately, they fired him after he fired the engineering staff in favor of contractors they could pay lower wages and no healthcare on.
51
As I said, a lot of harsh people here.
52
@40 Sgt. Doom, you're obviously envious of people who do have a tribe. If I hear of a tribe wanting to add an irrational, racist asshat as a member, I'll let you know.
53
Somehow I doubt that this signals a reversal in the decline of KUOW's locally generated programming. At least with the advent of streaming and podcasting I get to hear the former KUOW staff I liked succeeding at other stations elsewhere. I might have found Scher pleasant company if I knew him personally but he sucked at his job. I don't know Caryn G. Mathes well enough to hate her but if she is responsible for the recent programming changes I hope she leaves too.
54
@28 by "Seattle" you mean boring, right? Because that sum it up for me.
55
I'm surprised at all the Steve Scher hate. I thought he was a thoughtful and engaging interviewer, definitely better than anything on the AM. BUT I almost never listen to KUOW in the mornings, as I find it too dry, grown-up, and mildly liberal-suburban - boring, is what I'm trying to say. I'd totally missed out on the Cliff Mass drama (I do remember his little segments on Weekday and it never sounded like there was any tension) and I didn't even know that Weekday had been cancelled. So yeah, I wasn't really paying attention.

But I don't think that Steve's, um... departure means that KUOW will stop being boring suburban liberal station, though.
56
I really liked Steves Schere's interviews. I thought he was insightful, and I really liked his casual, gentle and conversational style of exploring whatever the topic was, and he usually had interesting topics (compared to "are risc processors appropriate to senior citizens? should you be outraged?" approach of many others**coughcoughrossreignoldscough**).

i missed weekday, and i will miss steve's insightful presence.

thank you steve.
57
The local programming interviews on KUOW have always made me cringe. I am frequently embarrassed for the interviewees because of the mindless questions asked. They seem like they're done by high schoolers. Seattle is a major city, with a lot of very bright and talented people. Why we don't have someone with the talent of Terry Gross or Ray Suarez has always puzzled me.
58
I think Scher was great. Mass has a lot to contribute, but neither excellent judgment nor humility are amongst those things. As far as how the Mass departure was handled, it seems to me that Mass has a lot more to defend. It was a tantrum plain and simple, and both tedious and embarrassing to watch.
59
@46 UW does still carry the license though right? They do have a project to build a broadcast palace for "John in the Morning" and cordon off fomerly public space in Seattle Center, just like what was done for Chihuly...
60
@57, I've wondered this too. It's a well-funded station, with some folks who have potential, Sara Lerner for example. But the other side of KUOW seems to be focused on finding the most depressing, gloomy stories you could ever hope not to hear. I moved to KCRW a couple years ago.
61
@60
Yup, that depressing news they report.
I wish KUOW would focus on happy news, more sports, notices of upcoming church picnics, reading from the Bible.
All that stuff about murders and sea-level rising. And the "gay" news? Not fun!!!! :) :) :)
62
@31 - I feel the EXACT SAME WAY! Steve Scher invariably sounded unprepared and bored, and stumbled ineptly through countless interviews which was just embarrassing. I am SO RELIEVED he's taken off! Just curious why so abruptly?
63
I can't say that I listened to him often enough to declare whether he was a good interviewers or not. However, whenever I did tune in, I found him horribly smug and condescending (especially around youth-centered topics or interview subjects). Maybe he wasn't in reality, but that's how he came across to me, and it actively made me want to avoid his show...of course, my excitement will be quickly dashed if they decide to fill his airtime with more of Radke...shudder...

(My 70 year old mother will be very disappointed, however...she thought Scher was great...)
64
To the people saying Scher was a good interviewer: examples please.

He is easily the worst, most cringe-inducing interviewer I've ever listened to. He seemed like a good enough guy and no dummy, but I found his interviews awkward at best.

As a point of reference, I think Terry Gross is the best in the business. Don't take her as a point of comparison with Scher though. That would be unfair.
65
Brissley writes:

"has been a divisive figure at KUOW for many reasons.."

Care to share any? I doubt if you actually know of any except more gossip. But prove me wrong and offer more than puff.
66
Scher is a pompous blowhard and has been at KUOW for 18 years too long (about when I started listening). I didn't follow or care about the ClIff mass thing as I couldn't handle listening to Scher for more than a minute anyway.

I so hope Radke gets more air time and perhaps more freedom to be him.

@64 exACTly. He was pompous and arrogant. And only slightly more comfortable during interviews than perhaps Trebek.
67
HI Peter von Wanker. First of all, my last name is Brissey, but nice try. Second, if you need evidence of how Scher was a divisive figure at KUOW, I encourage you to look up the definition of the word divisive and then reread this thread. Thanks for playing.
68
Cheer! Steve Scher's typical style of being unprepared and then asking a bunch of yes/no questions was terribly cringe inducing.
69
I'll only miss his bloodless "Wow..."s inserted in uninterested response to guests' statements...which were the complement to Marcie Sillman's exclamatory "Wow!"s at uninteresting or common sense statements provided by guests.
70
The trashing of Steve Scher here shows that some people have no class and are too brainwashed to appreciate a truly professional and insightful approach to journalism. Steve Scher was by miles my favorite journalist on KUOW and I listened to his interviews for many years. If you have no attention span and need to be constantly flitting from tweet to tweet, than I can see why you don't appreciate someone who knows how to slow it down and have a real, insightful conversation with the person he is interviewing. I learned so much listening to Steve through the years and genuinely loved his conversational style. Listening to Steve was like getting the depth of a book in one interview, instead of a series of disjointed tweets, which apparently is what many on the Slog would prefer. I enjoyed listening to Cliff Mass, but when I heard about what happened I didn't fault Steve. It sounds like Cliff Mass was out of line and Steve had the right to make the decision he did. Cliff Mass is no saint. I have a friend who said he was extremely condescending and mean spirited toward her when she was a student in his class. Steve Scher will be genuinely missed by a huge number of KUOW listeners. If you can't appreciate what he had to offer, I feel sorry for you.
71
The trashing of Steve Scher here shows that some people have no class and are too brainwashed to appreciate a truly professional and insightful approach to journalism. Steve Scher was by miles my favorite journalist on KUOW and I listened to his interviews for many years. If you have no attention span and need to be constantly flitting from tweet to tweet, than I can see why you don't appreciate someone who knows how to slow it down and have a real, insightful conversation with the person he is interviewing. I learned so much listening to Steve through the years and genuinely loved his conversational style. Listening to Steve was like getting the depth of a book in one interview, instead of a series of disjointed tweets, which apparently is what many on the Slog would prefer. I enjoyed listening to Cliff Mass, but when I heard about what happened I didn't fault Steve. It sounds like Cliff Mass was out of line and Steve had the right to make the decision he did. Cliff Mass is no saint. I have a friend who said he was extremely condescending and mean spirited toward her when she was a student in his class. Steve Scher will be genuinely missed by a huge number of KUOW listeners. If you can't appreciate what he has to offer, I feel sorry for you.
72
Hi Brissey,
Sorry about the name.

But "Second, if you need evidence of how Scher was a divisive figure at KUOW, I encourage you to look up the definition of the word divisive and then reread this thread."
is not a good answer. It says nothing.

And why are you "Emeritus"? Have you changed your name?
73
@67: That's a silly parameter and you know it. Kittens and rainbows are divisive subjects on Internet comment threads. Try again.
74
Barely there Scher? His lack of preparedness was often stunning. I can't count the number of times I heard him mispronounce a guest's name even after he'd been repeatedly corrected. Or the number of times he seemed to know nothing about the person he was interviewing. Hard to ask intelligent questions when you haven't done your homework.
75
@70; not sure what Twitter has to do with criticizing Scher for being an uninterested, unprepared interviewer.

I still rue the day at KUOW when Warren Olney was buried in a nighttime slot in favor of pseudo-journalist John Hockenberry, so I don't think it's my lack of class, Ms/mr Saint.
76
@75 Seriously, that was a huge mistake right there.
77
#74, I'm surprised that you are such an expert on Steve Scher's unpreparedness. If you disliked him so much, why did you listen to him to an extent that you can point out his every flaw? There are plenty of other radio stations. Steve had a natural, conversational style. That's what made me start listening to him in the first place. Some people here seem to focus on the negative in a man who has dedicated almost 30 years of his life to quality journalism in Seattle and beyond. Don't you have something better to get upset about? I can think of tons of other things. #70, the reason that I brought up Twitter is that there a lot of people who love short little blurbs. It makes sense that people like that wouldn't like Steve Scher's in depth interviews. Sounds like that may not describe you but perhaps some others on this thread. #70, were you personally interviewed by Steve Scher? I don't see how else you would know that he was unprepared. Just because he had a slower paced, conversational style doesn't mean that he was unprepared. #47 was interviewed by him twice and found him to be well prepared and to have a relaxed style. That was the point. He wanted to set the person he interviewed at ease as well as help the listener feel that they were in the room talking in an informal way. It's interesting how so many people on this thread miss the point and take a strength and try to turn it into a weakness.
78
@77 Go home Steve, you're drunk.
79
I am with #4 commenter, Sher seemed like a good interviewer esp for the Fri weekly local/nat news round up...the crap that replaced Weekday is, well, crap. OTOH I really like/d Cliff Mass and a bit of commentary on how I affect the weather and not just the boring predictions of rain & why its gonna rain again were kinda cool. So, yeah, I listen more and more to KPLU & my new Fave KBCS (91.3) for talk- the music is good too but not everyone's taste
80
Listening to Steve Scher was listening to paint dry--good riddance. Now can we please get Cliff Mass back?
81
Good riddance to Scherinsky. He was revolting.

Did anyone else notice that he changed his vocal inflections to emulate Obama? It was laughable and disgusting to even listen to his voice, quite apart from his stupid questions and comments, which were revolting on their own.

Bye bye, Scherstein.

Oh, and it's supremely ironic that he was fired by an affirmative-action beneficiary from DC. Hoisted by his own favored petard. LOL.
http://www.current.org/2013/10/caryn-mat…

Between Schergoldberg and his fellow traveller Joni Balterblattstein, it's hard to say who did the most harm to normal (i.e. non-"Chosen") consumers of Seattle media.
82
Steve's style really grew on me. I miss the old programming. Bill Radke is the station's last hope. And I am SO OVER hearing a generic Boston based news program filling our seattle airwaves every morning.

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