TV & VIDEO - June 9, 1989

An appeals court in Boston has upheld the firing of a radio station producer for airing an impersonation of then-Mayor Kevin White in 1982. The state court said that while the incident “was not exactly ‘The War of the Worlds,’ ” WRKO-AM had every right to fire Paul Yovino for inviting an impersonator on the air to take calls from the audience as “His Honor.” Upholding a lower-court ruling, a judge said Yovino’s failure to ensure that the audience knew the “mayor” was an impersonator amounted to a serious error. The impersonator induced a flurry of telephone calls to City Hall in which the callers made unflattering observations about what the “mayor” was saying on the air.