Boston Radio: Newsman Rod Fritz 'Blindsided' By iHM Firing

Rod Fritz (Boston Herald photo)

Veteran Boston newsman Rod Fritz said he was blindsided when execs cut him loose from NewsRadio WBZ 1030 AM last week, the latest high-profile departure from the legendary station since iHeart­Media took the reins in November.

“This was not my decision, obvi­ously,” Fritz told Jessica Heslam at the Boston Herald. “This was their decision. They just said that they were not going to renew my contract and here are your exit papers. I was kind of blindsided, without a doubt. I expected everything to move along nicely. I had no inclination otherwise.”

Fritz, a news anchor and reporter­ for WBZ for over a decade, said he met with Dylan Sprague, vice president of programming for iHeartMedia in Boston, and Jon MacLean, WBZ radio’s assistant news director, Thursday afternoon.

“I walked in,” Fritz said, “and kapow!”

Sprague told Fritz they were “going in a different direction” and weren’t going to renew his contract before handing him his exit papers, Fritz told me. MacLean, Fritz said, didn’t say anything.

Fritz, a shop steward for the station’s union, had hoped to stay at WBZ radio for a couple more years. His sudden ouster hit the newsroom hard.

“It’s taken me a few days to digest­ the reality that Rod Fritz no longer works at WBZ,” longtime WBZ radio reporter Carl Stevens wrote in a lengthy tribute on Facebook. “You always knew when Rod had arrived. He brought an immediate energy to the newsroom, the deep noise of unique joy ... Rod Fritz was, and is, a good man.”

Stevens wrote:  (Fritz') shift started at 8, and he was usually in before that. You always knew when Rod had arrived. He brought an immediate energy to the news room, the deep noise of a unique joy. You knew the baritone day had begun when Rod walked in. I appreciated the way he treated all of us in the news room with respect. And I liked the way he brought an immediate lightness to the place, laughter. In the business I'm in, we're often reporting on some unpleasant things, telling stories that sometimes crack the tuning fork in your soul. Rod said the same words on the radio, told the same stories. But, in the news room, he had the ability to make us all smile. I'm going to miss that."

Last November, iHeartMedia, formerly Clear Channel, picked up WBZ when radio giants Entercom and CBS Radio merged.

The station’s longtime news direc­tor, Peter Casey, left that same month. Mary Blake, an anchor­ and reporter, was let go over a month ago. Chris Citorik, executive producer of “NightSide with Dan Rea,” recently left on his own for a job at WBUR. Part-time employees have had their hours slashed and the station has cut some features.