Shock Jocks

Broadcasting & Cable reports that the Media Research Center delivered almost 400,000 petitions to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid “to hold a floor vote on a stand-alone bill to prevent the FCC from re-imposing the fairness doctrine.”

As Commissioner Michael Copps noted in reply, the FCC has no intention of bringing back the fusty old regulation — before it was scrapped in 1987, the doctrine required broadcasters to both cover issues of public importance and to seek out opposing viewpoints on those issues — but MRC and its crazed leader Brent Bozell still fear that “the doctrine, or something like it, might return in the guise of localism initiatives Copps is backing.” Copps rightly has noted that tying the two together is “issue-mongering,” as the industry trade journal puts it.

The House did pass a bill last session sponsored by former radio talk show host Mike Pence (R-Ind.), which placed a one-year moratorium on funding any FCC re-imposition of the doctrine. Democrat David Obey (D-Wis.), suggested that this was a red herring, a nonissue and that it was being debated only to provide sound bites for conservative talkers and “yap yap TV,” who had ginned up the issue.

Jay Severin began his first WTKK Radio show since he was suspended a month ago by reading an apology for his hateful remarks about Mexicans and Mexican-Americans. Here’s a portion:

“My remarks were hurtful, unkind and wrong. For those remarks and for failing to meet the standards you are right to expect of me, I am sincerely sorry. Most especially to the members of the Mexican community and Mexican-American community, I regret my remarks and I apologize for them. I am sorry. I want you to be an engaged and proud member of this audience, but I appreciate I must earn that privilege, every day….

To every person I have offended by my recent remarks: I am truly regretful and extend my apology. And to those who were not offended, I have still let you down by appealing to something less than the “best and brightest” in you, and for this I am also sorry.”

You can read the rest on the station’s Web site or courtesy The Boston Globe.

Jay Severin returns to the WTKK-FM airwaves with “a tricky task ahead of him, according to Boston Phoenix media writer Adam Reilly. “On the one hand,” notes Reilly, “Severin needs to show his bosses that he can, in fact, be “civil and respectful,” or at least come reasonably close. But Severin also has to convince his loyal listenership that–his recent suspension notwithstanding–he’s still the same edgy, erudite, Asian-women-lovin” conservative they’ve come to esteem.”

And fellow Boston media hound Dan Kennedy quotes Heidi Raphael, spokeswoman for Greater Media, WTKK’s parent corporation in his Media Nation blog:

“We have had conversations with Jay Severin over the past several weeks about his hurtful, inappropriate remarks. He understands that we will not accept this type of commentary on our airwaves in the future. Based on this understanding, we have agreed to conclude Jay’s suspension and he will return to the 96.9 FM WTKK airwaves on Tuesday, June 2, 2009. We want to emphasize that WTKK still strongly supports an open and spirited debate about the many issues our community and our country currently face. There will no doubt be times when people disagree with what Jay says. Our goal is to maintain a level of discourse that is compelling and thought-provoking, yet civil and respectful. While we will not always succeed in walking this line, we will continually strive to do so.

As Kennedy notes, “Given that Severin’s entire show is based on making hurtful, inappropriate remarks, it will be very interesting to see how this plays out.”

Indeed!

You can draw your own conclusions here, but judging from at least one email (see below) it appears as if shock jock Mancow Muller’s alleged waterboarding might have been a hoax:

From: [redacted]

Date: Thu, May 21, 2009 at 1:38 PM
To: [redacted]
Cc: [redacted]
Subject: Re: URGENT

You are a ROCK STAR!!!

It is going to have to look “real” but of course would be simulated with Mancow acting like he is drowning. It will be a hoax but have to look real. Would be great if they could dress in fatigues and bring whatever is needed. We will supply the water

xxxx

Linda Shafran

Jerry Springer Show
454 N. Columbus Dr.
Chicago, IL 60611

As reported in the Washington Times, radio host Melanie Morgan and Times columnist John McCaslin have been named anchors for The Washington Times” new morning-drive radio show, “America’s Morning News”, set to debut nationwide June 15 “from a newly built, state-of-the-art broadcast facility inside The Times” newsroom.”

“Melanie and John will leverage every ounce of expertise, energy and gumshoe reporting out of The Times” investigative newsroom. They know how to break stories that matter to the American public, are passionate about holding the powerful to account and are committed to unearthing the stories that matter most to Americans – at the dinner table, by the water cooler and inside their pocketbook,” Times Executive Editor John Solomon said.

The show is being syndicated by Talk Radio Network, which has previously showcased “such national talents as Laura Ingraham, Michael Savage and Monica Crowley.”

“We are thrilled at the opportunity to partner with The Washington Times in developing this unique and highly entertaining new program. It will rank with the giants,” said Talk Radio Network Chief Executive Mark Masters.

More and more media figures are now figuring out that waterboarding — oops, I mean “enhanced interrogation procedures” — IS torture. To their credit, they aren’t taking anyone’s word for it — but trying the procedure themselves.

The latest is WLS radio shock jock Erich ‘Mancow” Muller, who concluded the “procedure” is “way worse than I thought it would be” after subjecting himself to the controversial practice live on his show recently.

“I want to find out if it’s torture,” Mancow told his listeners, adding that he hoped his on-air test would help prove that waterboarding did not, in fact, constitute torture. With a paramedic on hand, Mancow was placed on a 7-foot long table, his legs were elevated, and his feet were tied up.

As NBC News reported, “Turns out the stunt wasn’t so funny. Witnesses said Muller thrashed on the table, and even instantly threw the toy cow he was holding as his emergency tool to signify when he wanted the experiment to stop. He only lasted 6 or 7 seconds.

“It is way worse than I thought it would be, and that’s no joke,” Mancow said, likening it to a time when he nearly drowned as a child. “It is such an odd feeling to have water poured down your nose with your head back…It was instantaneous…and I don’t want to say this: absolutely torture.”

Playboy.com journalist Mike Guy also recently underwent the procedure and came to the same conclusion…and last year, Vanity Fair writer Christopher Hitchens endured the same experiment — and came to a similar conclusion. The conservative writer said he found the treatment terrifying, and was haunted by it for months afterward.

“Well, then, if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture,” Hitchens concluded in his article.

As reported in industry trade journal Broadcasting & Cable, Media Research Center President Brent Bozell challenged acting FCC Chairman Michael Copps to support an up or down vote of Broadcaster Freedom Act in the House of Representatives, after Copps told a media reform forum that the doctrine was not coming back, that conservative claims that it would were a “phony issue” and comments he that those who connected the fairness doctrine with efforts to boost minority ownership and diversity –like Bozell — were “issue mongering”.

The Broadcaster Freedom Act, passed by the Senate in late February, would bar reimpostition of the doctrine by the FCC.

President Obama has said on many occasions he does not support the doctrine’s return, but conservatives like Bozell are worried that the FCC’s localism proposals, including community boards consulting on what programming broadcasters should air in the public interest, could be a form of ‘fairness doctrine lite.’

The Guardian Unlimited out of the UK recently featured me extensively in a piece headlined “Shock jocks: voice of America or voice of hate?”

“To the strains of Rule, Britannia! morphing into the old Soviet national anthem, one of America’s most popular talk radio show hosts launched into what has become a daily diatribe against Britain’s home secretary, Jacqui Smith, for banning him from the UK this week for hate speech,” Guardian correspondent Chris McGreal wrote from Washington.

McGreal later quoted me at length, noting that shock jocks like Savage regularly “claim that they’re just entertainers and yet they deliver this toxic mix of pseudo journalism, misinformation, hate-filled speech, jokes,” said Rory O’Connor, author of Shock Jocks: Hate Speech & Talk Radio. “It’s all bound together so when it’s convenient for them to be entertainers they say, hey, it’s all just a joke. But when it’s not, they say they’re giving you information that you need.”

AND:

O’Connor says conservative talk radio taps in to a disaffected but vocal minority. “This movement was born 20 years ago out of a sense of victimisation and voicelessness by a reasonably large segment of the population, and clearly Limbaugh and the people who followed him tapped in to some real sentiments of people who felt they weren’t being heard,” he said. “There is a minority of the American populace which is angry about these issues. Savage has 8 million listeners but we are a country of 300 million people. It’s a large niche audience but there is no way a majority of the people agree with him. But does it make a difference? Yes. They succeeded so widely that the conservatives they backed ended up controlling the [Bush] presidency, both houses of Congress and the supreme court.”

AND finally, on the subject of immigration reform:

The subject consumed the talk shows. In June 2007 an opinion poll showed that immigration had supplanted Iraq as the leading issue under discussion on the shows. “They forced this right to the top of the public agenda. They spent months denouncing the proposed legislation. They rebranded it as “shamnesty” not amnesty. Savage dubbed the bill the “i-bomb” and vowed to “derail this train of treason” Now with that type of talk it’s not surprising members of Congress, including conservative Republican senators, not only hear from these people but are threatened by them,” said O’Connor.

The Boston Globe reports that at least “some sponsors at Boston’s WTKK-FM radio station have stopped advertising and balked about whether to resume their ads if the station reinstates Jay Severin, the talk show host suspended last week for derogatory comments about Mexicans.”

Severin is said to be in talks with the station about returning to the air, and his agent expects he will be back on his afternoon drive-time show soon.

Severin was suspended after calling Mexicans “criminaliens,”leeches,” “the world’s lowest of primitives,” and exporters of “women with mustaches and VD.”

His remarks caused at least a few advertisers to pull ads , such as The Retailers Association of Massachusetts, which planned to broadcast 25 commercial spots over two weeks in protest of a proposed hike in the state’s sales tax.

“If he comes back on, we’re not spending any money with him,” said Will Keyser, a spokesman for the Retailers Association. “We don’t want to be associated with him. This guy is very controversial right now. He said some things we don’t want to be associated with.”

Another company’s advertising plans with the station were said by a spokesperson to be “in a holding pattern.”

“If the situation is rectified correctly — an apology and a retraction of his statement would be appropriate – I would consider advertising with him again,” he said. “There’s no need for any racism, and we don’t want to offend a group of people. I am waiting to hear from the station about their plans.”

“Jay remains suspended indefinitely,” station spokeswoman Heidi Raphael noted. “We have no further comment.”

Leading shock jock Michael Savage has been added to a list of “undesirables” banned from entry into the UK, along with more than a dozen other individuals considered by that country’s Home Secretary to hold extreme views.

Savage, who describes his own style as “explosive” and liberalism as a “mental disorder,” was said by The Home Office “to be engaging in unacceptable behaviour by seeking to provoke others to serious criminal acts and fostering hatred which might lead to inter-community violence”.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said: “Coming to the UK is a privilege and I refuse to extend that privilege to individuals who abuse our standards and values to undermine our way of life. Therefore, I will not hesitate to name and shame those who foster extremist views as I want them to know that they are not welcome here.”

Michael Savage threatened to sue in response, saying that he had been defamed and endangered by Smith’s decision.

“This lunatic . . . is linking me up with Nazi skinheads who are killing
people in Russia,” he said. “She’s putting me in a league with Hamas
murderers who kill Jews on buses.

“I have never advocated violence. I’ve been on the air 15 years. My views
may be inflammatory, but they’re not violent in any way.”