Today's Daily Schadenfreude: Melanie Morgan and Citadel Broadcasting

Score one for the good guys. One of the most hateful, bilious, deranged voices on right-wing hate radio has been silenced ... at least on the airwaves.

Melanie Morgan — the conservative radio talk show host who chairs Move America Forward, the group which has led efforts to shame and boycott Berkeley for its anti-U.S. Marine Corps recruiting stand — has lost her job at KSFO 560 AM.

Morgan, 51, delivered her final broadcast there today after 14 years at the microphone, she says in a news release. KSFO owner Citadel Broadcasting decided not to renew her contract as part of the company’s announced across-the-board financial cost cutting.

“The ratings were terrific and I got to connect with a lot of passionate conservative casues, and I’m really grateful for that,” Morgan told me just now. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to the show, I don’t know what’s going to happen to KSFO.”

If you don't know who Morgan is, check out some of her "greatest hits," as covered here during the one-Vulcan crusade my blogfriend Spocko took on against KSFO a year ago. I won't recount them here, other than to say that over the years, she's recommended the assassination of prominent Democratic and progressive leaders on the air, and she deserves to rot somewhere just for that. Sure, she'll be bailed out by wingnut welfare, but at least she's lost one avenue to spew her vomitous hate.

Meanwhile, Morgan's departure due to "cost cutting" signals another delicious development, as Citadel Broadcasting, which owns KSFO and numerous stations in some 50 U.S. markets (but none in Florida), is tanking financially (PDF). They lost over a billion dollars in the fourth quarter of 2007 "related to a continued deterioration in the radio marketplace and to a decline in [Citadel's] stock price during the three months ending December 31, 2007[,]" along with declining revenues in major markets like San Francisco (home of KSFO), Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and Washington. There is more analysis here and here, but the bottom line is that it ain't pretty for this purveyor of disgusting right-wing rhetoric.

So, to Melanie Morgan, that vile load of filth, and to Citadel, who burnished their piece-of-shit image a few months ago by bringing back that scumbag Don Imus to the airwaves, congratulations! Today's Blast Off! Daily Schadenfreude is for you!

Condolences

On behalf of all the readers of Blast Off!, I offer condolences to my good blog-friend Spocko, whose father passed away last night.

You can't keep a bad man down

Radio hatemonger Don Imus, whose racist remarks about the Rutgers University women's basketball team last spring got him fired, is coming back up like last night's pizza and beer.

He'll be premiering next Monday on WABC in New York. As we learned from Spocko on Blast Off! Radio Monday evening, this is notable because WABC is owned by Citadel Broadcasting, which also owns the noxious KSFO in San Francisco. Remember KSFO? Spocko took them on about a year ago and made national news by exposing that station for the cretins they are. So it's fitting, really, that Imus would get picked up by a company that makes its profits on spewing hate and filth on the radio.

Monday evening, Spocko suggested that rather than boycotting advertisers, it was more effective to remind them what kind of heinous, hateful talk they were supporting. With regard to Imus, then, we can start with New Jersey's Hackensack University Medical Center.

It's unclear how many sponsors the new Don Imus morning radio show will have when it debuts Dec. 3 on Citadel Broadcasting's WABC in New York. But one advertiser, Hackensack University Medical Center, has made a preemptive bid to be the first sponsor on the program, confirmed Jerry Della Femina, CEO of the client's agency, Della Femina Rothschild Jeary and Partners.

Della Femina, who declined to say how much the client paid to be first, believes the audience for the early part of the program on day one will be huge because it will combine Imus' regular fan base with those that are curious to hear what he has to say on the air for the first time since being axed by CBS-owned WFAN radio for comments he made in April about the Rutgers University women's basketball team. "They're assured of a very big audience," he said of his client.

[...]

Imus and the medical center have a long-standing relationship that includes an annual radio-thon that has raised millions of dollars over the years for the center's efforts to combat cancer in children.

But if, like me, you're in America's Wang™, you might be interested to know that there's a Florida connection to this story, too:

Separately, a second advertiser, West Palm Beach, Fla.-based drug rehabilitation facility Hanley Center, has also confirmed it will air a campaign throughout the first week of the new Imus show, which in addition to WABC, will also air on Citadel Boston outlet, WTKK. The campaign is called "Second Chances," and as part of it, Imus will do will do a live read about the center, where he was treated in 1988. Other spots, created by Hanley ad agency, Woburn, Mass.-based Psynchronous Communications, will point to Imus as an example of how the center's program can help the addicted.

"The idea of 'Second Chances' is an important one that we'll no doubt hear more of during Don Imus' return," notes Psynchronous Founding Partner, Kevin Zundl. "We had a unique opportunity to show his strength of character through his 20 clean and sober years after getting help at Hanley Center. It is an important story to tell in inspiring others towards recovery and we are grateful to Imus for lending himself to this campaign."

Don Imus' recovery from substance abuse, like that of so many other individuals, indeed is inspirational and he ought to be commended for it. However noble Hanley Center's activities are, though, they deserve nothing but condemnation for enabling an addict to get his fix. No, I'm not referring to substance abuse, but rather to the verbal abuse Imus dishes out to people of color and others who aren't like him (i.e., white, male, and rich).

Curiously, no other advertisers are mentioned in the article. Are we to believe that Imus is having trouble finding people to pay for his obnoxious rants, and that only two customers have pitched in with a mere five days before the show starts? We can only hope ...

The last word on Crook

I've no interest in inciting a blog war, but I received an e-mail yesterday from Michael Crook, who read yesterday's post.

I share the e-mail here in its entirety without commentary, other than to say that there really are people out there who feel the way Crook does. If nothing else, give him credit for an honest description of his beliefs.

Hello,

I read your posting about me, and for the most part it's pretty spot-on. I have no problems with your opinion, though I find it disturbing that you support queers. This probably explains why you stand in solidarity with Spocko, who to this day remains too much of a coward to reveal his name.

Disagree with me all you like, but at least I do this under my real name. The same can't be said for Spocko, or even for you.

I stand firmly behind my hatred for jews, US troops, and queers.

Cheers,

Michael Crook

KSFO wankfest summary

Give the KSFO wankers credit for framing the issue for their listeners, but they are wrong, wrong, wrong on so many levels. This is not, nor has it ever been, a freedom of speech issue. I said it before and I'll say it again, slower this time:

1. No ... one ... is ... saying ... you ... can't ... broadcast ... your ... filth.

It is simply an issue of notifying your advertisers that they are supporting said filth. Period. If you can't figure that out, well, you're dumber than I thought (and that's saying something.)

2. Anonymity ... is ... irrelevant.

Admit it: you want people like Spocko and me to reveal our identities so you can target us, or better yet, get some of your more unbalanced listeners (that's like picking the dumbest Bush -- where do you start?) to do your dirty work. We won't be your monkeys. Besides, our identities aren't even relevant -- knowing who we are doesn't change one iota what you've spewed forth on your show, nor will it change the shit you throw around in the future. So get off the obsession with bloggers' identities and move on to the substance of your argument. (By the way, until proven otherwise, I still maintain that the KSFO wankers aren't using their real names, either ... it's quite common in broadcasting, as "everyone knows," right, "Lee?"

3. Your ... speech ... is ... hateful ... and ... violent.

I actually don't think we disagree on this point. You've all but admitted it throughout the three-hour wankfest this afternoon. The key difference is, liberals believe that advocating their death through execution, or painting a bulls-eye on the speaker of the House, crosses the line of acceptable broadcast speech, and you disagree.

It would be so simple if you just looked at it this way: you can say whatever you want on your radio station, and we can say whatever we want to your advertisers. What's wrong with that?

An open letter to Melanie Morgan

As the time for KSFO's Spockobash approaches (an event for which Melanie Morgan already has planted her minions for calling in), Spocko has asked me, via e-mail, to respond to Morgan's latest online rant. I'm happy to oblige.

First, I'll copy it (fair use, you right-wing gasbag!) for reference here, in its entirety.

Silencing conservatives on the airwaves

A final thought for this week is a personal one.

I've been the target, as have a number of other conservative talk-radio hosts, of an effort by liberal bloggers to get me fired for engaging in what these far-left activists are calling "hate speech."

The move by liberal activists to silence conservative radio hosts comes after the failure of the left-wing Air America radio network. Given that liberalism couldn't compete and win in the marketplace of ideas, liberals now want to silence conservative radio hosts.

One anonymous online blogger compiled audio clips edited to make it look like I was calling for the murder of Nancy Pelosi, when I did no such thing. (You can listen for yourself and understand how they are now trying to impugn my credibility by misrepresenting my words).

One blogger called for fining me and my station $325,000 for each "offense" so as to shut down our station. Another liberal blogger is lining up activists to do a drill to get Congress to pass a new Fairness Doctrine. Another blogger said they were going to work until they got me "off the air."

I've been on the air for 12 years at KSFO radio in San Francisco – one of the highest-rated talk-radio stations in the nation.

Every day for four hours I sit behind a radio microphone, fighting for a better America that promotes freedom, liberty, security, honesty and integrity. That calculates to be about 1,200 minutes every week. That's a total of more than 60,000 minutes each year for 12 years.

Over the course of all these years, I have of course said things I regretted, or worded things in a way I wished I hadn't. When that happens I've retracted the statement and made a public apology, such as I did concerning comments made about Sen. Barrack Obama. You should read my statement on this matter here.

Despite the efforts by liberal censors to silence me, I will never back away from what I believe in: a strong national defense, respect for the men and women of the United States military, a secure border and enforcement of our nation's immigration laws, lower taxes, less government regulation in our lives and in business, respect for the values of decency, honesty and morality.

Any efforts to silence me are just further proof of how desperate and pathetic liberals have become.

Okay. This is almost too easy.

Look, Ms. Morgan, first things first. I'll say it slowly and use short words, so you can understand.

No one is trying to silence you.

You have a right to spew forth your garbage all you want. It's called the Constitution, and despite Drunky McStagger's best efforts to make it irrelevant, it's still the law of the land. Your right to free speech is inviolate, just as mine or the Ku Klux Klan's or Spocko's is. The issue is merely one of notifying KSFO's advertisers as to the kind of vicious, hateful ranting they've been supporting. Sure, you may have lost some national accounts, but I'm sure Bill's Gun & Tackle Shop can pick up the slack, right? So let's forget all the bullshit about "silencing you."

Regarding what you said about Speaker Pelosi ... here are your exact words:

MORGAN: Oh. We've got a bull's-eye painted on her big, wide laughing eyes.

So you weren't threatening the Speaker there? Then what exactly did those words mean? You've been denying your threats, Ms. Morgan, but you haven't given even one alternative interpretation for that statement. Unless and until you do, the obvious interpretation -- that you were advocating attacks on Speaker Pelosi -- stands.

Okay, Ms. Morgan. Let's assume for the sake of argument that your Pelosi statement was completely innocuous. What about your threats against others, or the threats by your colleagues to which you obviously subscribed? For example:

ANN COULTER: I think it's agreed, all we have to determine is the method of execution [of liberals].
MORGAN: Yes, we can quibble about it.

MORGAN (referring to New York Times editors): Get 'em.
MALE CO-HOST: Yeah, yeah, as Peter Mulhern said earlier, "Prosecute!"
MORGAN: Yes! Hang 'em!
MALE CO-HOST: Don't make grumpy noises - do it!
MORGAN: Yeah!

MORGAN: One of [Cindy Sheehan's] groupies comes up to a Gold Star Mother -- a woman who lost her son in Iraq -- and said, "Did you lose a son in Iraq?" The mother said, "Yes." The groupie said, "Do you know how many women he raped and how many children he murdered before he died?" Yes. It is so reprehensible, it is beyond comment.
MALE HOST: Oh, yeah. Yeah. This is kind of thing -- I'm sorry, exception to the law, whoever did that should have been stomped to death, right there, just stomp their bleeping guts out.
MORGAN: I'm tellin' ya, I actually -- there is, um, video of this available, and audio as well, and I've gotta track -- I had it e-mailed to me, and I forgot to forward it to my office this morning. I'm gonna get that ...
MALE HOST: So we can find out who that person was.
MORGAN: Y-yeah. And we're gonna play and show, uh, the rest of America what kind of bleeping idiots are out there in this world who deserve nothing but our contempt, and of course Cindy Sheehan doesn't even condemn that kind of speech. She just wants her rights -- her free speech rights protected. It is just unbelievable.

So, don't bother with the denials. Your speech, and that of your colleagues, is utterly abhorrent and reprehensible. You advocate violence against those with whom you disagree time and time again, and you show not even a scintilla of human decency in spewing this garbage. Yes, again, you have the right to say it, but we have the right to notify your advertisers, too.

Believe me, Ms. Morgan, you do well enough impugning your own credibility than an army of liberal bloggers (I thought you'd like that imagery) could do in a hundred years.

I've got to stop now, so I can listen to your Spockobash. Good luck storming the castle. You'll need it.

P.S. That's "Barack," with one "r." Dumbass.

UPDATE (3:16 pm 1/12/07): KSFO's call-in number (good luck getting past the screeners) is 415-808-5600.

Also, here's a response, as I listen to their ridiculous, fact-free diatribe (Lee Whats-his-fuck just called Cindy Sheehan a "whore"), to their complaints about anonymity: first, what difference does the identity of the bloggers make? You said what you said! An anonymous messenger doesn't change the hate inherent in your statements.

Second, I worked in radio before I went to law school. I know many broadcasters use pseudonyms. Are you working under your real names? I rather doubt it ...

UPDATE (3:36 pm 1/12/07): So far the defense is pretty weak. According to Ms. Morgan, she didn't actually advocate the killing of New York Times editor Bill Keller. Rather, she said that if Keller were tried and convicted of treason, she would celebrate his execution (complete with frying sound effects). Oh, yeah, I see the difference - thanks for clearing that up. (I'm being sarcastic, Ms. Morgan, since you probably couldn't tell.)

UPDATE (3:42 pm 1/12/07): The "bulls-eye" comment defense was that it was "taken out of context," even though the link over at Online Blogintegrity was to the exact same clip that they played on KSFO! Lee Rodgers added (paraphrased), "Everyone knows that the term 'bulls-eye' is regularly used in political discourse, and everyone knows what it means," in a way that suggests it's a minor little metaphor. Uh huh ... that's exactly how she meant it.

UPDATE (10:09 am 1/13/07): In his open letter to Ms. Morgan, jurassicpork says it far more eloquently than I ... but beware the picture of my neighbor Mr. Ms. Coulter at the top of his post. It's nightmare-inducing.

Today's Daily Schadenfreude: Melanie Morgan and the fascists at KSFO

Have you been keeping up with the Spocko's Brain controversy? Short version: Spocko was offended by the messages of hate spewing forth from San Francisco radio station KSFO, and he decided to write to the station's advertisers to alert them to what they were supporting. When advertisers started cancelling their accounts, KSFO (an ABC/Disney station) fought back by strong-arming Spocko's ISP into shutting down his blog. Now, the San Francisco Chronicle has picked up the story, so for more details I'd refer you to their article yesterday.

Well, one of the worst offenders at KSFO, Melanie Morgan, responded yesterday, and it's obvious that she is utterly, irretrievably delusional.

There is a very, very serious story, folks, that we need to tell you about. We had hoped never to have this discussion on the air, that a crank with a keyboard would simply go away. But clearly, he has been joined by some very dangerous and frightening fringe-left groups in this country, and have tried to portray KSFO as a big corporate giant stomping on their rights to free speech, when in fact just the opposite is true. In the San Francisco Chronicle today, there's a big article about this, written by Joe Garafoli. The headline on page A2 is "Trying to Censor Blogger: Owner of conservative radio station KSFO demands liberal critic quit using audio clips."

Let me just sum this up for you. There is a liberal, left-wing kook by the name of Spocko's Brain, who is a Star Trek fan, and refuses to identify himself publicly and just cowers in anonymity. I think he's just a chicken bleep because he won't come forward with his own name. Of course, he attacks us as hate radio, as hatemongers, as spewers of violent rhetoric. Well, I have to tell you that what he has done is take a lot of our old comments from audio from our radio station, which is copyrighted. They're old, lacking in context, and in some cases just outright lies. He's put these audio cuts up on his little tiny website, and then he's contacted all of our advertisers and asked them to quit advertising with us and then, you know, keeps pushing these audio clips which are out of context, old, or in some cases just outright lies, as I said.

[...]

I'm not going to get into any more details about this, other than to say that tomorrow morn -- [Friday] at noon [Pacific time], we're going to do something we have never done before here at KSFO. We are going to bust out of our regular format, we are going to drop Dr. Laura programming at 12 noon tomorrow, and we are all going to go on live for three hours or however long it takes to answer all the questions. We are going to invite people to call us on the phones at 808-5600, we're going to invite the media to participate or watch -- either participate via our computer stream or to be involved by watching us here in the studio.

It's almost too easy to take apart Morgan's self-important rhetoric, and the commenters at Media Matters already have done so in fine fashion. The bottom line is, there's simply no defense for the hate speech that KSFO broadcasts. Morgan's attempt is simply pathetic: first, no one, least of all Spocko, claims that she and KSFO lack the right to spew the hate that they do; Spocko merely alerted advertisers to what they were saying, verbatim. Conversely, ABC/Disney's strongarm shutdown of Spocko's Brain is a restriction of free speech, for no other reason than they're WATBs. Second, regarding the clips themselves -- what "context" is necessary to interpret threats against Nancy Pelosi, calls to murder liberals, or any of the other incitements to violence that they've broadcast? And what the hell does Spocko's identity or anonymity have to do with the issue here? Morgan and her pals said what they said, and whether it's been disseminated by an anonymous blogger or by the Pope makes absolutely no difference.

Like so many other right-wing whackjobs, elected and otherwise, Morgan et al. whine about how they're the victims in all of this, but the facts, as always, clearly demonstrate otherwise. It might be worth listening at noon Pacific time (3:00 EST) today to see how KSFO defends itself, but I'm sure it's going to be nothing more than a massive circle-jerk for the hosts and their mouth-breathing, sycophantic followers. Don't expect any dissenting opinions to get past the call screeners ...

I'm proud of the liberal blogosphere and especially Spocko for taking a principled and eminently defensible stand here, and I'm honored to be on their team. Meanwhile, to Morgan and the other Hitler Youth at KSFO, congratulations - this Blast Off! Daily Schadenfreude is for you!