If you think it’s okay to call on-air for the murder of political opponents — as Michael Reagan, son of the late president and a prominent radio talk show host recently did, adding “I’ll pay for the bullets” — then just go ahead and “change the channel.” If not, exercise your free speech to standup and speak out against hate speech on the public airwaves! WATCH HERE
We still have a regular FAQ, but after the jump you can watch Rory answer some common questions about the book in a series of YouTube clips. You can watch all 12 questions as a playlist, or individually. Each is 1-2 minutes long:
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Rory O’Connor has been talking about Shock Jocks on several fine radio programs in the last month. Here are several mp3 links of these appearances:
New Capital Radio from June 19th, 2008;
The Jay Marvin Show on Colorado’s KOA Progressive Talk;
The Bob Rivers Show on Seattle’s KZOK;
The Peter B. Collins Show (nationally syndicated);
Bulldog and The Rude Awakening Show on Maryland’s WOCM-FM;
and finally, the nationally syndicated The Thom Hartmann Program!
Published on Thursday, May 29, 2008 by Think Progress
by Barry Nolan
So, I’m that TV guy who got fired by Comcast over Bill O’Reilly. I protested the fact that O¹Reilly was chosen to receive the Governors Award at this year’s Emmy Awards ceremony. That’s the highest honor that they hand out. The important word here is: honor.
Now granted, you won’t find a lot of Albert Schweitzers or Mother Teresas working in television, but at least the people who had been honored in the past had pretty much followed the part of the Hippocratic oath that says, “First, do no harm.”
O’Reilly was an appalling choice, not because of his political views, but because he simply gets the facts wrong, abuses his guests and the powerless in general, is delusional, and, well, you might want to Google: Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Plus there was that whole sexual harassment thing, the lawsuit he settled for an estimated $10 million. Not the kind of guy you normally think of when it comes time to pass out honors.
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Listen to author Rory O’Connor discussing Shock Jocks on WBAI’s Wakeup Call, from June 27th, 2008.
Download the exerpted mp3 of this broadcast here.
Rory O’Connor will be at the Netroots Conference in Austin in July–check out the conference web page for more details.
…and don’t forget to check out this video at Robert Greenwald’s Brave New Films website!
Previously posted on AlterNet on June 20, 2008.
The notion that the days of right-wing dominance of the airwaves may well be numbered is rapidly becoming a reality.
Conservative fears of an impending Democratic attack on talk radio – dubbed the “Hush Rush” effort in an homage to top-rated radio talker Rush Limbaugh — continue to escalate, despite ample evidence that such an assault is unlikely to occur when (as is likely) Democrats sweep back into power in the forthcoming elections in November.
As noted recently on the “Focus on the Family action” website citizenlink.com, conservative fears of a supposed return to the Federal Communications Commission’s long-defunct Fairness Doctrine remain unabated. In a post entitled “Take Action: Ask Congress to Protect Talk Radio,” Managing Editor Jennifer Mesko recently wrote, “Democrats have threatened to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine which would force conservative stations to broadcast liberal viewpoints.”
In response, says Mesko, “Radio broadcasters and some members of Congress are calling on Democrats to celebrate July Fourth — dubbed “Radio Independence Day” — by pledging to protect the airwaves from censorship.”
As previously reported, “Leading hard-right conservatives, led by their talk radio ‘shock jock” shock troops, have been worrying aloud about the supposed return of the long-defunct Fairness Doctrine ever since their stunning success last year in defeating bi-partisan immigration reform.”
Although most informed observers believe the right’s existential angst is unfounded, it is nonetheless real — and has spurred former broadcaster and current congressman Mike Pence, R-Ind., to introduce the Broadcaster Freedom Act (H.R. 2905), which would prohibit the FCC from reinstating the Fairness Doctrine. [Read more...]
