Dallas DJs fired for Spears rumor

DALLAS (AP) - A radio station has fired two disc jockeys who falsely reported that Britney Spears died in a car crash. Keith Kramer and Tony Longo of the Dallas rock station KEGL-FM caused widespread panic with last week's hoax. But Tom Schurr, vice president and market manager in Dallas for station owner Clear Channel Communications, said that wasn't the only reason the DJs were fired. Known on the air as Kramer and Twitch, the pair began working at KEGL in 1998. The Dallas station continued to air their show when they moved to Clear Channel-owned KSJO in San Jose, Calif., in 2000. They returned to KEGL in May. Kramer said he and his partner were surprised that the station fired them because he'd gotten permission from the program director to air the rumor about the 19-year-old pop diva. "The last thing we expected was us, self-proclaimed morons, to create such a worldwide panic," Kramer said. "That's not what we set out to do."