As the 2024 presidential election begins to heat up, news/talk radio is likely to return to its partisan corners in preparations for defending or tearing down the candidate from the other side of the political aisle. KFI AM-640 Program Director Robin Bertolucci says it isn’t in her station’s DNA to operate that way, though.
During an appearance on the Conversation.Buzz series with former KLIF morning host Dave Williams, Bertolucci was asked about the upcoming Trump vs Biden Presidential election. She shared her belief that while many listeners may have their chosen side, the brand will not.
“KFI is a live, local station, and we will cover the news that we need to cover so people know what’s going on. But we don’t have a political agenda as a brand. Our job is to talk about the news, what it means, why it matters, and to explain it to people and to connect with them about it,” she said. “But we’ll cover it when we need to, and probably not a lot more than we need to, because our first focus is being live and local.”
She continued by noting that KFI will continue to have other priorities in spite of the presidential election dominating the headlines on other outlets.
“I think to some degree, most of the country is not thrilled with either choice. So to whatever degree we can just be direct about explaining what we believe, and why we believe it, and not getting into the the team sport of politics. I think that’s the real win.
“I think a lot of brands are very focused on Who is the R or the D, and we try and be a live local brand. We cover politics, we cover traffic, we cover local news, we cover crime. Yeah, we cover a lot of things. So that is not our only focus.”
