Perhaps political affiliations and pro-Bush executives at Clear Channel have
something to do with Howard's situation. The CC executives individually gave
$42,200 total to Bush versus $1750 to any of the likely Democratic
candidates. Clear Channel's political action commitee (probably funded by
donations of said CC executives) gave 77% of their $335,501 ($258,335) in
federal contributions to the Republican Party according to the Center for
Responsive Politics quoted in the USA today article below. Viacom, who
syndicates Howard's show, only gave %30 of their $546,650 ($163,995) to the
Republicans. I first heard about this last night on CNN's program Lou Dobbs
Moneyline. Clear Channel only carries Howard in a limited number of
markets- Infinity has most of them. By dumping Howard, this may have been
an inexpensive way for the conservative board of CC to take the 'moral' high
road and make Infinity appear to be smut peddlers to the FCC and their
conservative listeners. Coarse 'vulgar' language has been part and parcel
of Howard's show for years, but nobody officially called him on it until
now. Why did the FCC and the board of CC decide to call him on it after the
anti-Bush comments? Did Nipplegate push the FCC over the edge? I really
don't know. A quote of his anti-Bush comments are in the second article
below.
I'm not sure if it's censorship (in the 1st Amendment sense of the word)if a
private entity such as CC decides to dump him. They could have the right to
do whatever they want. The FCC >may< have no say in the matter of tossing
Howard. It may be dangerous, however, because CC owns over 1200 stations
over which to broadcast their own agenda. With those 1200 station in mind,
get a balanced media diet. Even >I< mix Bill (Fair and Balanced) O'Reilly
and Rush into my NPR listening.
>From USA Today:
http://www.usatoday.com/money/media/2004-03-23-clear_x.htm
Reprint of an article from Salon.com without that annoying 'membership' BS:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1090649/posts
I'll relegate any further (if any) comments to the off-topic forum to which
I just subscribed this morning. I figured I post this here since it seemed
to start here.
Cheap Dak Content in hopes I might not get yelled at too much for being
off-topic: I got a Panasonic CQ-3400U MP3/CD head unit so I can listen to
Howard, Rush and NPR in upgraded bliss. I'll be putting it in a new-to-me
red 94 sb, rc 318 rwd 46rh w/ tow package. For the first time since 96,
I'll have something other than a 2.5 4-banger! I'll post pics soon.
Here's a description of the head unit.
http://www.crutchfield.com/S-BFHKEjcK03l/cgi-bin/ProdView.asp?s=0&c=3&g=6270
0&I=133C3400&o=p&a=1&cc=01&avf=Y
Tim
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