In the letter he says, “At this point, this is wage theft, plain and simple.”

April 27, 2015

Accounts Payable
CUMULUS MEDIA INC., CUMULUS BROADCASTING INC.
3280 Peachtree Road, NW Suite 2300
Atlanta, Georgia 30305

CC: Barbara Haynes, General Manager
Cumulus Media Providence
1502 Wampanoag Trail
East Providence, RI 02915

Hello,

My name is Philip Eil and I am a freelance journalist based in Providence, Rhode Island. I’m writing to collect payment for four articles, totaling over 11,500 words, I wrote for 630wpro.com (the website for the Cumulus-owned News Talk 630 & 99.7 FM WPRO, based in East Providence, Rhode Island) in November and December of 2014. The sum of the fees for these articles is $1,350, and my late fees (which I explain at the end of this letter) add up to an additional $684.50. In total, Cumulus Media and/or WPRO owe me $2,034.50, and I am demanding this payment immediately to avoid further legal action.

It’s not customary for me to demand payment from a publicly traded corporation, so some explanation is in order. In October of 2014, the Providence Phoenix (the weekly newspaper where I had worked as news editor) closed. Shortly thereafter, I was approached by WPRO’s Digital Media Director, who was interested in expanding the web content on 630wpro.com. We talked about what he was looking for and the kinds of articles I was interested in writing, and we agreed upon terms that were laid out in a contract that I ultimately signed and submitted on November 17, 2014. On October 31, 2014, 630wpro.com published an article introducing me as a freelance contributor which included a quote from the station’s Program Director: “We are excited to have new, original content from someone as respected as Phil available to us…The original content and perspective he provides will be invaluable to our on-air hosts and online delivery.” That post has since been removed from the website, but I have attached a printed version.

My first article for 630wpro.com, “Campaign 2014: A Look Back,” was published on November 3, 2014, and three more articles followed before year’s end: a 5,000-word interview with the outgoing governor of Rhode Island, Lincoln Chafee; an in-depth report on the state’s use and distribution of the anti-overdose medication, Narcan; and a 3,000-word year-in-review article published in late December. When I still had received no payment after submitting the fourth article, I decided to stop working on new pieces.

So began a still-fruitless quest to be compensated for the contracted work I had done for WPRO – all work that has been published on 630wpro.com alongside ads that presumably generate revenue for the station. Though I had already inquired about the status of my payment in November and December, in January I wrote numerous additional emails and made additional phone calls to various station employees. Despite these repeated inquiries, I received no paycheck.

On January 22, 2015 – more than two months after I had sent my first invoice – I received this email from WPRO’s Business Manager:

Hi Phillip – during the year-end process, payable runs are fewer and farther between as opposed to the normal weekly runs.  We don’t cut the checks here, they are processed at the corporate level.  I only get reports once per week and will know on Monday if they cut your check this Thursday.  If they haven’t, I will get you a cashier’s check and expense it on my monthly expense report.  I apologize but it is beyond my control.  We haven’t had the ability to cut checks locally since Cumulus took over three years ago.

Still, no check arrived. I made more phone calls and wrote more emails. On February 3 – nearly three months after I first sent an invoice to WPRO – I received this email from the same business manager, following up on a phone call in which she said the check was being overnight-mailed to me:

Hi Phil – I just wanted to let you know that due to the storm yesterday the FEDEX package was not picked up.  It is going out today so you should have it tomorrow.

Still, no check arrived. I made more phone calls and wrote more emails. On February 11, I received this note from the Digital Media Director who had initially approached me about working for WPRO:

I was notified that [the Business Manager] is no longer with the company.

There is a corporate business manager in the building and I have reported the missing check to our GM.

Stand by…

Still, no check arrived. I made more calls and wrote more emails. On April 7 – more than four months after I sent my first invoice to WPRO – I received this note from the station’s Program Director.

Hi Phil,

I got your message.  I am so sorry this has happened.  I know [Digital Media Director] mentioned quite a while ago that you were waiting for money. I thought you had been paid.  I will find out what is happening with this and get back to you as soon as I can.

Again, no check arrived. And, as of today, 161 days (5 months, 10 days) after I filed my first invoice, and numerous months after filing invoices for subsequent articles, I still have not been paid for the work I did for 630wpro.com.

While I understand that unforeseen circumstances and personnel issues may have contributed to the delay, I – an independent contractor – should not have to suffer for your company’s internal dysfunction. At this point, this is wage theft, plain and simple. I am not an amateur journalist and my work is not a hobby for me. When I am misled and taken advantage of for nearly six months, I will not remain silent. Last week, after months of private efforts to resolve this situation proved ineffective, I wrote a Facebook post about it, which, in turn, was written about in a local Patch.com article, which, in turn, was picked up by the national media blogger Jim Romenesko, who wrote, “Shame on you, Cumulus Media’s WPRO!” I will continue to tell my story until I am paid.

As you can see, I am CC’ing Barbara Haynes, General Manager of Cumulus Providence, and I will also be simultaneously publishing this letter on the blog rifuture.org. As for the late fees I mentioned, when a client does not pay me within 90 days of receiving my invoice, I assess a fee of one percent of the agreed-upon payment for every additional day that payment is received. In this case, I sent WPRO a $250 invoice for my first article on November 17, 2014. It has been 71 days since the 90-window expired, thus a $177.50 fee has accrued. Add to this the fees from the other three unpaid articles ($260, $160, and $87, respectively) and the total comes to $684.50. Added together, these fees will continue to rise at a total of $13.50 for every day I am not paid.

You will find an invoice for those late fees – as well as my initial WPRO invoices and a printed copy of the 630wpro.com article trumpeting my arrival as a contributor – attached to this letter.

I sincerely hope I receive a check for $2,034.50 as soon as possible. A public apology would be nice, too.

Sincerely,

Philip Eil

Freelance Journalist, Editor, and Teacher
[My email address.]
[My phone number.]

Probably not, but Lew Dickey, CEO of WPRO’s Atlanta-based parent company Cumulus, is hinting that we might start hearing less about Republican politics and more about the Red Sox baseball.

“We’re seeing a shift in spoken word radio from political-based talk over to sports,” Dickey told Bloomberg News recently. “The ratings are slightly down on talk and moving up on sports. Advertisers follow audiences and that is what we are seeing.”

You can watch him here. Dickey seems excited about the potential for country music as well as sports radio to keep making money for Cumulus. But he doesn’t seem too excited about the bombastic variety of conservative hate radio to which WPRO devotes most of its resources.

“I think people might be tired of all the partisan bickering,” Dickey told Bloomberg.

There is evidence that WHJJ sees this writing on the wall. This week the mild-mannered Andrew Gobeil is filling in for the always angry Helen Glover.

Not so much, though, at WPRO, where station manager Barbara Haynes seems to be bucking the trend and getting rid of the least conservative personalities, rather than the most: I was the first to be let go, then Andrew Gobeil then Ron St. Pierre. If this trend holds true, John DePetro might be the last employee at the Salty Shack!!

The American Prospect has a great piece on the rise and fall of conservative talk radio in America as seen through the experiences of Rush Limbaugh.

Since Limbaugh’s program began airing nationally 24 years ago, the goal of every episode has been to create an environment in which liberalism can’t but die. The show and its host came along at a time when the Willie Horton-ized politics favored bomb-throwing. The medium of political talk radio was just beginning its ascendance from regional media backwater to primary driver of national Republican politics.

But here we are today, newly embarked upon the second half of the Obama epoch. The conservative movement is fissured, and Barack Obama’s re-election brought a round of recriminations against the conservative media for poisoning Republican politics. For all of 2012, right-wing media gave its audience Obama-bashing and unfounded assurances of a Romney victory. As The Atlantic’s Conor Friedersdorf argued, this ended up putting conservatives at a disadvantage. “On the biggest political story of the year, the conservative media just got its ass handed to it by the mainstream media. And movement conservatives, who believe the MSM is more biased and less rigorous than their alternatives, have no way to explain how their trusted outlets got it wrong, while The New York Times got it right.”

Limbaugh is doing what he’s always done, because it’s worked for him in the past. But there’s a question now as to whether this model, an artifact from the Reagan years, can plausibly lead the broader conservative movement forward. It’s not 1988 anymore, and Republicans and conservatives still smarting from 2012 have to be wondering about the future of the party of Limbaugh.

I hear 26 people were let go – 16 union and 10 non-union – in contrast with the Journal’s own account which said 23. My information has it that the newsroom lost three editorial assistants, two photo editors, three photographers and the library assistant. That’s 9 journalists our paper of record is losing as a result of this decision from Dallas based on how to better serve stockholders rather than Rhode Islanders.

From someone who went through the very same experience almost a year ago to the day (Nov. 4, 2011), you each have my most heartfelt sympathies. And regardless of what you might think of my curent product, I hope you each see RI Future, the project I took on post lay-off, as a bright, bright sign that there are options available where you can continue to do journalism and contribute in a meaningful way to our community. And maybe even eke out a little living!!

It’s called independent media, and it’s the most important sector of the marketplace for Rhode Islanders to invest their resources and energy if we want to foster a healthy democracy.

I won’t lie, it’s much more lonely out here than it is in the old-style newsroom. And a year later I still often fear for my financial future. And it might not be for you if you don’t like challenging assumptions and trying new things.

But more than anything, I’m extremely optimistic about the opportunities that are out there for us independent journalists in the 21st century.

In several different capacities, I’ve been preparing to be kicked out of corporate media for years. Seeing the writing on the wall way back in 2003, I taught myself HTML and built my first blog. Four years later, I helped launch the first local news website in the state – My02818 was bought by AOL and we became the only site to be transitioned into a Patch site (EG Patch is still the best community news organization in the state, thanks to the great management of my former colleague – and ironically enough also a former ProJo copy editor – Elizabeth McNamara!!)

Then, of course, I moved over to WPRO to launch their post-Go Local-debacle foray into the digital world. After dramatically increasing their readership, they repaid me by eliminating my job description (on paper anyways, I’m pretty sure Dee DeQuattro has the same job title now).

If it sounds like I’m bitter, I’m not. I never really was. Corporations are out for profits, not news dissemination, and I fully expect smart corporate actors to behave in their best interest. Just like a thief will rob you if he can get away with it, so will a corporation cut you lose if they can make more money without you. I understood that pretty well before being laid off, but I know it really well now!

Here’s how Led Zeppelin once put it: “Your brother brought me silver/ Your sister warmed my soul/ But now I laugh and pull so hard/ And see you swinging on the gallows pole.”

But let’s all hate the game, rather than the players! Belo and Cumulus didn’t do anything wrong – they just filled their niche in our community. It’s up to consumers and citizens to speak with their dollars and their votes if we want corporate forces kept in check, and journalists to be able to make a living telling everyone what they ought to know about their world.

And more importantly, it’s totally awesome and liberating out here. Every single day with RI Future, I get to help define the future of journalism in my home state … that is the opportunity of a lifetime. Many lifetimes, in fact. It’s the journalistic opportunity of the millennium, to be precise!

And, besides, all of us are going to have to learn to survive on a little less in this corporate-controlled incarnation of America … and we get to be a pioneers on that front too!!

If any out-of-work journalists – or anyone really – ever wants to talk about how to use the internet and new media to survive outside of the traditional corporate-controlled media market, I’m always more than willing. It’s probably my favorite thing to talk about.

In fact, I’ll be touching upon this very topic when I participate in one of the panel discussions on the future of news at my alma mater, URI, with ProJo New Media editor Peter Phipps, assuming – and I really do hate to even type this – that he isn’t one of the people who lost his job yesterday.

According to the complaint, the bus – like the Barrington vacation house that DePetro is said to have made unwanted sexual advances towards co-worker Dee DeQuattro – is owned by former state rep. David Caprio. Caprio could not be immediately reached for comment and did not return calls last week either.

According to the court filing:

In December of 2011, Mr. DePetro used a bus that he said was owned by his friend David Caprio, who was present on the bus, to transport listeners to a “Holiday Tree” religious protest at the Rhode Island State House. Mr. DePetro informed Plaintiff that he and his friend had “a lot of fun” on the bus, and that she and some of her girlfriends should join them on the bus some time. Plaintiff did not report the matter as she thought that her rebuff was sufficient.

DePetro had organized a rally at the State House to compel Gov. Chafee to stop using the term Holiday tree. He made national news on FOX for his assertion that calling it a holiday tree was an affront to those who believed in Christmas.

The amended complaint also contains new information about the alleged incident that took place at the house at 32 Lorraine St. in Barrington.

While discussing the house, DePetro casually stated that he and some friends have sexual parties at the house, as he had alluded to on prior occasions, and proceeded to put his hand on Plaintiff’s shoulder and pull her toward him. Plaintiff yelled at him to stop and pushed him back, whereupon DePetro attempted to pull her toward him again and was once more pushed back by Plaintiff, who became extremely upset and told him she just wanted to be brought back to work.

The complaint also says there was a witness at the house, identified as “John” with whom DePetro talked when he and DeQuattro were leaving the house.

The new complaint also adds a charge of defamation and slander because of statements he made to me that were published on this website.

According to the article, Mr. DePetro further falsely claimed that ‘There was never a mention of anything until she f—d up The Who story,'” according to the court filing. ”

“Plaintiff never went into a “tailspin” over her successful “Who” article, which was in fact approved by WPRO, and was certainly never in danger of being fired over it. Plaintiff furthermore had reported her problems with DePetro well before DePetro’s outlandish reaction to the “Who” article, as Defendants were aware.

According to company policy, Cumulus claims that it “strongly prohibits retaliation against any employee or applicant for reporting harassment.” Despite this policy, and despite DePetro’s acknowledgement and intentional disregard of this policy as stated in the RIFuture interview, and despite the fact that DePetro had engaged in obvious retaliatory slander of a co-worker which adversely affected her work environment, he was suspended for only two days.

The amended complaint also now names Lew Dickey, CEO of Cumulus, the parent company of WPRO, as a defendant.