A couple of end-of-year announcements caught Springfield political junkies by surprise.

David Vincent Jericho, the conservative and acidic local talk-radio host, unexpectedly departed his microphone amid total silence—silence from the station and silence from Jericho.  David Catanese, political reporter for KY-3, also announced he was leaving for a reportorial gig in Washington, D.C.

As an elected official, I routinely fussed about Jericho’s point of view and the “slant” that he gave to certain stories.  I felt that he looked at most issues, not through rose-colored glasses, but in a negative manner.  If a question could be interpreted negatively, I felt that he and his regular listeners would do that.

However, even though I dreaded them, I appeared on Jericho’s program three times—once during the primary race and then twice during the general election. During those appearances, I found Jericho to be pleasant and helpful, but certainly not over effusive.  He was fair in terms of the questions he asked me versus those he asked my opponent.

He even had the grace to smile when I criticized him on-air for endorsing both my opponents before he had even met or talked to me.

Catanese regularly covered local and state political issues for KY-3.  He, on several occasions, frustrated me as well as others in the public view by seeming to have his story in mind before he ever arrived at a particular meeting.  A case in point was the interim report from the Safety and Justice Roundtable, a public meeting at the Library Center. Catanese interviewed both Presiding Commissioner Dave Coonrod and me (at the time, I was still a candidate) about combining the Springfield Police Department and the Greene County Sheriff’s Department.

These interviews occurred before the meeting ever started and were actually about a topic that didn’t even make the top five priorities as set forth by the Roundtable. Even though Coonrod and I both pointed out that there would have to be significant changes in state law before discussions could even start, Catanese was not deterred.  He had his viewpoint and, by cracky, he was going to air it. He left well before the meeting concluded.

However, I am not celebrating the departure of these two media voices from the Springfield scene. As frustrating as they were, they both served a very useful purpose in keeping those of us on City Council alert and sharp.  Knowing that Jericho and Catanese were watching forced us to dot every “i” and cross every “t”. In other words, we knew we’d be held to account if we got sloppy.  And that’s the role a vigilant press and media should play in our society.

I don’t know if KSGF is changing formats or if they plan to replace Jericho with another talk-radio host.  I suspect KY-3 will bring in another photogenic reporter to cover the political beat.  Either way, the airwaves will be a little quieter for a while and that may not necessarily be good for Springfield.