Colorado Media Activists Confront Bigotry in Talk Radio
The Arab American News, News Report, Will Youmans, Posted: Aug 28, 2007
ANN ARBOR — Arab Americans tired of the lethal hate messages of talk radio can look to Colorado for an antidote.
In last week’s edition of "The Arab American News," writer Ali Moossavi pointed out that “Islamophobia…has indeed become a largely acceptable form of racism, as pernicious as it is. Moosavi said, “We know what the problem is.” Correctly, he noted that we really should be asking “what are we going to do about it?
The Arab American News received a letter in follow-up to this piece from Bill Menezes, the editorial director of the Colorado spin-off of the organization, Media Matters. His group is a “Web-based progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the Colorado media.”
When media figures or their guests use the airwaves to broadcast false and hateful messages, Mr. Menezes’ group takes them to task. He suggested that readers of The Arab American News might be “interested in the work we’ve done in Colorado regarding the same types of irresponsible speech on local talk radio.” In other words, this group offers one answer to the question, what can be done?
Colorado Media Matters has gone to great lengths to record and document hate speech that appears on local and national televised media outlets. Their website links examples of anti-Muslim rhetoric on the airwaves in order to provide ammunition for local activists seeking its end.
Compiling the examples is the crucial beginning to any public campaign. Complaining about bias in the media is one thing. Having the proof to take to program directors, advertisers, and the audience is another thing. Before there is action, there must be information.
It is just as important for activists to name the wrongdoers and to target them. Colorado Media Matters, and others around the nation, have identified Clear Channel Communications as a significant source for hate speech on the radio. As Menezes said in the letter, “a significant amount of (anti-Muslim rhetoric) is occurring on Denver-based stations owned and operated by Clear Channel Communications.”
Clear Channel Communications is a broadcasting giant. After rules governing media ownership were changed by Congress and signed into law by President Clinton, the company acquired more than 1,200 radio stations across the country. Its business strategy appears to depend in part on “shock jocks,” offensive radio personalities who rely on vulgarity and sometimes hate to generate high ratings.
Colorado Media Matters chronicled some of the bigotry typical of too many broadcasts on an August 8 broadcast of 630 KHOW-AM's “The Peter Boyles Show.” According to the organization, “guest host Lou Pate joined a caller in denigrating Muslims and the Islamic faith.” Pate said Muslims “don't respect women at all.” He said sarcastically, “they're a peaceful, benevolent, kind people, the Muslims are ... [I]f they like you, they'll cut your head off with one swing instead of a jagged edge that takes seven or eight.”
When a caller referred to the Muslim people as a “sick race,” Pate agreed. He called them “a violent community.” He also railed on about the “honor killings ... that they condone. They will kill ... their own wives; they will kill their own daughters.”
Colorado Media Matters has tracked Pate’s record of anti-Muslim bashing since he guest-hosted the January 26 broadcast of Newsradio 850 KOA's The Gunny Bob Show.
Clear Channel’s critics include a long and growing list. A News Standard article described a “national movement against the company.” It seeks to “remind people about the responsibility of broadcasters to serve the public interest in exchange for their free use of the public airwaves.”
These are not new issues for our community. In 2004, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) launched a campaign, “Hate Hurts America.” It sought to compel radio listeners to “issue complaints to the FCC about anti-Muslim radio content,” and communicate with advertisers who support these programs.
Though the issue has the attention of national organizations, in the end, the local audiences can have the most success stopping such hate. For example, as Menezes pointed out, it is “important to note how this occurs in local programming because in some cases a host, such as KOA-AM’s “Gunny” Bob Newman has his program syndicated to Clear Channel stations in other markets.” Increasingly, local activism can have a national impact.
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