WLS AM 890
Robert Feder 
Updated 10/25/2021 6:34 AM
Cumulus Media, owner of news/talk WLS 890-AM and more than 400 other radio stations nationwide, is on a collision course with some of its biggest personalities over the company’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for all employees.
Dan Bongino, who took over Rush Limbaugh’s coveted midday slot (11 a.m. to 2 p.m. weekdays) in May, is threatening to quit — even though he already was vaccinated on the advice of his doctors because he has Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
“I’m not really happy with the company I work with right here,” Bongino told listeners last week. “I believe these vaccine mandates are unethical. I believe they’re immoral. I believe they don’t take into account the science of natural immunity due to a prior infection. I believe they’re broad-based and don’t take into account an individual circumstances of why they may or may not want to take a vaccine. And they’re antithetical to everything I believe in.
“So, I’ll say again, I’m not going to let this go. Cumulus is going to have to make a decision with me — if they want to continue this partnership or they don’t. But I’m talking to you on their airwaves. They don’t have to let that happen. And I wouldn’t mind if they didn’t. Because it’s really unfortunate that people with a lower profile than me, who don’t have 300-plus stations, have been summarily either shown the door or been put in really untenable circumstances because they simply want to make a medical decision by themselves.”
His fight with Cumulus, Bongino said in a subsequent explanation, “has everything to do with the principle of body sovereignty.”
• Get the full report and more Chicago media news, at robertfeder.com.
