THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Saturday, July 15, 1995                TAG: 9507150383
SECTION: LOCAL                    PAGE: B7   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: THE WASHINGTON POST 
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                         LENGTH: Short :   47 lines

NORTH'S BOSS POSES AS CALLER, TO ASK FOR RADIO-OWNERSHIP REFORM NORTH SAID HE KNEW NOTHING ABOUT THE CALL WHEN IT WAS MADE.

``Bill from Fairfax, now you're on,'' Oliver North said last week during a WWRC-AM radio interview with Newt Gingrich.

But the man who said he was Bill from Fairfax was actually Warren Wright, the No. 2 official at Washington's WRC.

The call had been arranged by top station executives so Wright could press the House speaker about legislation that would lift restrictions on radio station ownership. Wright was calling from another room in the Silver Spring, Md., building.

Tom Milewski, chief operating officer of New Jersey-based Greater Media, which owns WRC, acknowledged the staged call by Wright.

``I don't think it's a big deal,'' Milewski said.

After all, he said, the station did not ``burn a pickup truck,'' referring to the incident in which the TV newsmagazine ``Dateline NBC'' staged a fiery crash of a General Motors truck.

Milewski denied that Wright's call was ``phony.''

Asked why Wright did not identify himself, he said, ``There was no need.'' Asked a second time, he said, ``I didn't ask him.''

Jack Roberts, North's producer and the station's acting program director, called the incident a ``lapse in judgment'' on his part. ``Do I like doing this? No,'' he said. ``Should I have stopped it when I realized or suspected it was his voice? Probably. I heard them talking about getting a caller through. I was smart enough to realize it was him.''

North said he knew nothing of the staged call until being informed by station officials after an inquiry by The Washington Post.

``I'm disappointed that that took place, but I work here at a radio station that's obviously got an interest in this legislation. . . . That's life,'' North said. He said he believes that advocates frequently make such calls to talk radio shows without identifying themselves.

Milewski is leading an industry campaign in lobbying Congress against the bill that would deregulate the radio industry. He spent three days in Washington this week as head of a group called the Coalition for Broadcast Diversity. by CNB