January 10, 2004
Criticize the prez, lose your job.
Broadcast goliath Clear Channel is letting a conservative talk show host go because of his criticism of Dubya. Phoenix talks how host Charles Goyette has lost his prime-time program and won't have his contract renewed when it ends in a few months. At one point, the station manager told Goyette that managing him was 'like managing the Dixie Chicks,' and it was made clear that only Goyette's excellent contract kept management from firing him.
Posted by Magpie at January 10, 2004 03:05 PM | TrackBackAmong the survivors at my station: one host who wanted to nuke Afghanistan (he bills himself as “your voice of reason and moderation”) and another who upon learning that 23-year-old Mideast peace activist Rachel Corrie had been run over by an Israeli bulldozer shouted, “Back up and run over her again!” As he doesn’t quite get some of the important distinctions in these debates, such as that Iranians should not be called Arabs, we would hope that he’s not taken too seriously. [...]
I’ve seen how war fever infects a people. And I was in a no-win situation, with an audience pre-screened by virtue of 11 hours a day of screaming war frenzy—unlistenable for the uninfected—that surrounded my time slot. So I knew there would be a personal price for opposing the war, and I was prepared to pay it. But as a lover of the rough and tumble of public debate and the contest of ideas, I am disappointed at what is happening in my industry.