Tampa Radio: WMNF Discloses Rob Lorei Fired Over Ethnic Slur eMail

Rob Lorei

More than three months after long-time radio host Rob Lorei was booted from the airwaves, subscribers to WMNF-FM received an unexpected email Thursday afternoon explaining why, reports The Tampa Bay Times.

Lorei, who helped found the radio station nearly four decades ago, had said earlier that WMNF’s management gave him no reason when he was fired April 9. Around noon Thursday, Will Greaves, president of the station’s board of directors, provided subscribers with one.

“In November 2020, Mr. Lorei used an ethnic slur towards a listener from a station email account,” the email reads. “When confronted about it, Mr. Lorei confirmed the use of the slur and has since defended it.”

Reached for comment, Lorei disputed the explanation and said the email in question was from a listener who had defended the actions of a far-right group.

“People who know me and my long record at WMNF know I would never use an ethnic slur,” Lorei said in a written statement to the Tampa Bay Times. “I did use a political term in an email to a listener who wrote in to downplay the dangers of the Proud Boys on or about January 6th.”

The term at issue, Lorei said, is “kapo” — a German word used to describe prisoners who aided their captors in Nazi concentration camps. Lorei said he has always understood it to describe an ally of the far right.

The Proud Boys describe themselves as “Western chauvinists” and have been associated with white nationalist movements. Members of the Proud Boys have been charged in the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 that delayed the certification by Congress of the 2020 presidential election.

Lorei said WMNF’s general manager knew about the email exchange at the time and laughed about it, telling him not to contact the person again.

“I didn’t,” Lorei said. “Three months later, I was fired.”

In a written statement to the Times, Greaves, the WMNF board president, said the board didn’t learn until April that Lorei had used the word in his email. Lorei was fired immediately. Greaves noted that Lorei’s email was sent two months before the Jan. 6 insurrection.

“The term Mr. Lorei used in November 2020 was not a political term,” Greaves said. “It was an anti-Semitic racial slur that is highly offensive to any Jewish person.”