Ralph Barbieri’s abrupt dismissal at KNBR wasn’t the kind to which anyone’s likely to attach the word classy. After 28 years at the station, the veteran sports talker and co-host of “The Razor and Mr. T” was marched into the GM’s office upon arriving at work Tuesday, told he was being terminated, given 100 pages of legal documents to read and was then given the old security frog-march out of the building.Add: And then it got worse. He tells the Mercury News’ Dan Brown:
When I got into my car, I tried to access about 20 voicemail messages, but I found out that somebody had cut out my access.More: The timing of Barbieri’s dismissal is all the more puzzling because he’d just re-upped his contract several months ago, extending through November. Neither station management nor the bosses at Cumulus Media, which owns KNBR, are saying much. Barbieri, meanwhile, says he’s already weighing options to work elsewhere.
The whole process took about 7 minutes. Let’s see: 7 minutes for 28 years at KNBR. That’s four years a minute.
