Talk radio station charging Massachusetts politicians for interviews

Governor's Council candidate Nick Iannuzzi will take his message to listeners with a paid appearance scheduled on "Saturday Morning Live," a talk radio program out of Lowell. Iannuzzi, an independent challenging incumbent Third District Councilor Marilyn Devaney, will appear on the show hosted by former Dracut Selectman Warren Shaw from 8:05 to 8:30 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 9. He will pay $490 for the 25-minute segment. Iannuzzi and the owner of station WCAP, AM 980, say there's nothing unusual about selling airtime on a weekly talk show, but media critic and Northeastern University journalism professor Dan Kennedy says it sounds unorthodox to him. "As long as there's full disclosure, I don't really see any ethical problem on the part of the candidate," Kennedy said, "but if he's paying to appear on a talk show, that strikes me as a very unusual arrangement, and I've just never heard of anything like that before.