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WTOP’s main air studio was dedicated Wednesday as “The Jim Farley Glass Enclosed Nerve Center,” for the man who led the station’s transformation from a poorly rated AM station, to an all-news digital news organization and the top-billing radio station in the country. Farley died in August 2024, at the age of 75.
With current and former WTOP employees in the newsroom, as well as Farley’s family watching, president, Hubbard D.C., and general manager of WTOP Joel Oxley whisked away an Irish flag, to reveal a glass etching that reads “The Jim Farley Glass-Enclosed Nerve Center: First Get It Right, Then Get It First,” citing one of the longtime journalist’s exhortations. Farley was vice president of news and programming at WTOP for 17 years, from 1996 to 2013.
“When Jim came here, it just changed things immediately,” Oxley told those gathered. “It was just such an injection of enthusiasm and creativity and ideas, ideas, ideas.”
Former program director Mike McMearty said the renaming is fitting and well-deserved.
“‘The Glass-Enclosed Nerve Center’ was his brainchild — it was theater of the mind,” said McMearty. Regarded by admirers as part Edward R. Murrow and part P.T. Barnum, Farley coined the phrase as a ratings and marketing tool.
Other employees recounted Farley-isms that have remained fixtures in the continually changing newsroom, which now produces content on-air, online, on social media, through smart speakers and WTOP app alerts.
“Get in trouble for something that you did, not something you didn’t do,” reflected Farley’s leadership style which engendered a feeling of pride, responsibility and empowerment within the newsroom. Another Farley tidbit — “It’s always better to beg forgiveness than to ask permission.”
WTOP’s Director of News and Programming Julia Ziegler has been inspired by Farley since she joined the station in 2002, when she first served as an intern.
“Jim Farley taught us all so much,” she reflected. “The ‘first get it right, then get it first’ is one of those many phrases I know I will take with me forever.”
Many new and younger members of the WTOP news team never met Jim Farley.
“My promise to all of you is that we will honor his memory by continuing to impart that wisdom, and all of the other things he taught us, in the next generation of journalists that walk through these doors,” said Ziegler.
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