PA Radio: Ex-WHLM Personality Sues TV Stations

Former WHLM 930 AM radio personality David Reilly charges that “radical activists” and local TV stations conducted a smear campaign against him that falsely labeled him as “a racist, bigoted Nazi.”

According to the Bloomsburg Press-Enterprise, Reilly, 29, filed a defamation lawsuit this week against two TV stations, members of the local Democratic committee and the heads of two local charities, among others.

Last summer, Reilly used a drone to videotape the controversial “Unite The Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. He edited together a video montage of the footage set to music and posted it to his personal website.

Dave Reilly

That video, along with a previous interview of the organizer of the rally on his father Joe Reilly’s radio station, ignited protests outside WHLM that ended in Dave Reilly being forced out of his job.

Reilly maintains in his lawsuit that he was only an observer and videographer at the Charlottesville rally, not a participant.

And before the Bloomsburg protests and boycott against WHLM erupted, he planned to take over WHLM and “follow in his father’s footsteps.” Now the suit says, he is unable to find work in Bloomsburg and had to move to Kansas.

The lawsuit says that’s because his critics in the Columbia County’s Democratic party and in the community accused him of having racist, white supremacist views he does not hold. It seeks more than $50,000 in damages on each of four civil counts citing alleged defamation; negligence due to the defendants’ “wanton, intentional and malicious conduct;” defamation by implication; and privacy invasion by casting “a false light” on Reilly’s character.

Reilly and WHLM then became the target of a community protest. The radio station lost advertisers and faced “bankruptcy or going out of business” as a result of a boycott.

Among others, Reilly goes after two local television stations and their staff members in his lawsuit. Those include WNEP 16 and its reporters Suzanne Goldklang and Andy Palumbo, as well as WBRE TV and reporters Andy Mehalshick and Kelly Choate.

The suit alleges their coverage of the radio station protest and community outcry was either false or misleading and intended to cast Reilly “in the worst possible light.”

WNEP and WBRE have not commented.

The suit says “media defendants” acted with “reckless disregard for the truth” while the other defendants acted “with the specific intent of harming” Reilly, who was unable to find work in Bloomsburg following his resignation.