The silence emanating from WPRO is deafening.
They bill themselves as the station of record, but give not even a mention to its infamous moral-crusading shock jock John DePetro being on the hot seat for allegedly having a moral lapse with a coworker. She claims he took her to a house he uses for sex parties and made several passes at her. But don’t blame Bill Haberman and his news team for this journalistic foul; word has certainly come down from corporate headquarters that employees talk about this situation at their peril.
The silence is even more deafening coming from the John DePetro Show itself. It’s doubly hypocritical in this instance, too. Such fodder is typically DePetro’s bread and butter: in fact just on Friday he chided Mike Tyson on air for not owning up to his sexual malfeasance. I wonder if he will follow his own advice, if it turns out he is guilty as charged?
Imagine the hateful vitriol that would be spewing from DePetro’s microphone if such an accusation was made about a Democrat in the General Assembly? There is no doubt he would be not only calling for their resignation, but also calling them every name in the book.
In fact, just in June I warned him of the dangers of throwing stones when living in a glass house.
But far be it for John DePetro to take advice from anyone. And while he’s been quiet on the air, he hasn’t been quite so quiet off of it. Tuesday afternoon, after reading my piece calling on WPRO to get rid of him, he called me to offer his side of the story. He says he did nothing wrong.
He said an investigation done by the company has already exonerated him of any wrongdoing. “Internally, I was cleared,” he told me. “They did a full investigation.”
He also said DeQuattro brought the suit against him as a way to defend against losing her job, which he said was in jeopardy because of how she handled a story. “There was never a mention of anything until she fucked up The Who story,” he said. “That sent her into a tail spin. Were they going to fire her, I don’t know.”
He wouldn’t answer any questions about the Barrington house he is alleged to have taken DeQuattro to, but said he expects many details to come out in a trial.
He took little issue with me calling for him to be taken off the air. But he thought it should be his advertisers that determine his fate, not the media. “I get that people don’t like my politics and don’t like the show,’ he said. “But let the marketplace determine that.”
DePetro never asked for his comments to be off the record, though he did indicate he could get in trouble for them. I thought about giving him the benefit of the doubt, but he knows well how the media works and he can take care of himself. Or not.
Kinda gives one an insight into our free press and its culture.
Where’s Bert Lahr when we need him?