Billboard update: WLW-AM Posts Its Regrets

Just saw that WLW-AM has posted this "Billboard Update" on its 700WLW website:

"We sincerely regret any offense created by our recent billboard advertisements. We moved quickly last week to request immediate removal by the billboard company. They are in the final stages of that process."

But that's not an apology, say Alfonso Cornejo, Hispanic Chamber Cincinnati USA board president, and Jason Riveiro, president of the local League of United Latin American Citizens chapter. Their organizations were among a coalition of 20 religious, ethnic and community groups which demanded a written apology last week for WLW-AM's "The Big Juan" billboards showing a Mexican man in a sombrero with a donkey.

"I consider it an update. I think they need to make a press release. I just happened to stumble upon the statement (on the web). They need to make a press release so people who need to hear it can hear it," says Riveiro, the spokesman at Tuesday's press conference. He says he has an appointment Tuesday with Chuck Frederick, WLW-AM general manager and Clear Channel market manager, to discuss setting up sensitivity sessions and a multi-cultural community advisory board for the station.

The website statement "is not an apology," Cornejo says. "That's not what we're looking for. We want a letter addressed to us, apologizing and explaining to us what happened. I spoke to Chuck Frederick Monday and Tuesday, and I'm told I'll get a letter of apology Thursday."

In an email this morning, Frederick tells me all the billboards have been taken down.