'I was on disability and they fired me,' longtime WBFO reporter Mike Desmond says [The Buffalo News, N.Y.]

May 26—Mike Desmond has covered local news for more than half a century, primarily as a newspaper and radio reporter.

He covered the Love Canal environmental disaster in the late 1970s.

He also took a 39-second video in 2020 that went viral and drew millions of views of a then 75-year-old Martin Gugino being pushed to the ground by a police officer outside City Hall during a Black Lives Matter protest.

Now the 78-year-old Desmond is back in the news because of how his run at WBFO-FM ended.

After 34 years working at the public radio station, Desmond said he was told he was out of a job in March while he was on disability for three months after an accident off the job in a local restaurant.

And he said he found out he was let go by his health insurance provider.

Desmond's side of the story is the only one available because a WBFO spokesperson emailed twice that the organization doesn't comment on personnel matters.

The spokesperson made the comment a second time after being reminded that WBFO is part of a public broadcasting company, Buffalo Toronto Public Media, supported by its listeners — and viewers of WNED-TV — and the public deserves an explanation.

Tom Calderone, president and CEO of Buffalo Toronto Public Media, has not returned multiple phone calls.

Desmond, who went on disability in December, said in his familiar and distinctive voice that he is still healing from his injuries after the fall at the restaurant.

"I was on disability and they fired me," he said. "I was in pretty bad shape for a while. I mean, I had broken bones in my back and so forth."

He added that he was injured off the job and was told by his lawyer, Kevin Walsh of Niagara Falls, that his firing was legal. Desmond learned that a clause in his contract allowed him to be terminated after 90 days.

He said his last day working his night and weekend shifts was Dec. 2. He said he was fired in March and remains on disability.

And no one told him why he was let go.

"They don't have to," said Desmond. "New York is what is called an employment-at-will state. It means they can, if you're not covered by a union contract or ... some kind of a personal services contract, they can let you go."

Desmond, who also worked at the Courier Express for 12 years, at newspapers in Utica and Lockport and at WGRZ-TV (Channel 2) in a career that has spanned 54 years, confirmed with his lawyer that he had no legal recourse to challenge his firing.

He received his normal pay until he was dismissed and then was given accumulated vacation time but didn't receive any severance.

Desmond said he didn't learn of his firing from anyone at Buffalo Toronto Public Media.

"I got a letter or an email from Independent Health that my health insurance was canceled effective about four days later. And I looked through the email and about four pages in, I discovered that I was no longer employed by WBFO."

He then contacted a person in human resources at WBFO.

"I called him up and said, 'Is that what happened?' And I got a letter ... a couple of days later which basically said I was gone.

"I was planning on going back to work when the doctors let me go back to work, but they chose not to do that."

How did he feel about the way he was told he was fired after 34 years at the station?

"I mean I would have appreciated a nice letter from Tom Calderone or something like that," he said.

He has received some calls from former colleagues to see how he was doing and had some phone conversations with people in the human resources department.

He said he hasn't listened to the station since he was let go. He could certainly be forgiven for being angry about finding out through an email from his health insurance provider that he no longer had a job at a place where he had worked so long.

"Certainly," said Desmond. "But there's no point."

Brian Meyer, a retired Buffalo News reporter who also was formerly the senior director of news and public affairs for WBFO, seemed more upset than Desmond about the way the radio veteran was treated.

"I was fortunate to oversee a newsroom filled with incredibly hardworking professionals," said Meyer. "Mike was hands-down the hardest working in the group. And he was a walking encyclopedia on all things Buffalo. I was sickened to hear about his firing."

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