Clear Channel

[LowerCaseRepublican]

http://www.amconmag.com/1_19_04/article3.html

 

The American Conservative February 2, 2004

By Charles Goyette

*Charles Goyette was named "Best Talk Show Host of 2003" by the Phoenix

New Times.

 

Clear Channel gags an antiwar conservative.

 

"Imagine these startling headlines with the nation at war in the Pacific

six months after Dec. 7, 1941: "No Signs of Japanese Involvement in Pearl

Harbor Attack! Faulty Intelligence Cited; Wolfowitz: Mistakes Were Made."

 

Or how about an equally disconcerting World War II headline from the

European theater: "German Army Not Found in France, Poland, Admits

President; Rumsfeld: ÔOops!', Powell Silent; ÔBring 'Em On,' Says Defiant

FDR."

 

It seems to me that when there is reason to go to war, it should be

self-evident. The Secretary of State should not need to convince a

skeptical world with satellite photos of a couple of Toyota pickups and a

dumpster. And faced with a legitimate casus belli, it should not be hard

to muster an actual constitutional declaration of war. Now in the absence

of a meaningful Iraqi role in the 9/11 attack and the mysterious

disappearance of those fearsome Weapons of Mass Destruction, there might

be some psychic satisfaction to be had in saying, "I told you so!" But it

sure isn't doing my career as a talk-show host any good.

 

The criterion of self-evidence was only one of dozens of objections I

raised before the elective war in Iraq on my afternoon drive-time talk

show on KFYI in Phoenix. Many of the other arguments are familiar to

readers of The American Conservative.

 

But the case for war was a shape-shifter, skillfully morphing into a new

rationale as quickly as the old one failed to withstand scrutiny. For a

year before the war, I scrambled to keep up with the latest incarnations

of the neocon case. Most were pitifully transparent and readily exposed.

(Besides the aluminum tubes and the trailers that had Bush saying,

"Gotcha," does anyone remember those death-dealing drones? Never have

third-world, wind-up, rubber-band, balsa-wood airplanes instilled so much

fear in so many people.) Still, my management didn't like my being out of

step with the president's parade of national hysteria, and the war-fevered

spectators didn't care to be told they were suffering illusions. So after

three years, I was replaced on my primetime talk show by the Frick and

Frack of Bushophiles, two giggling guys who think everything our

tongue-tied president does is "Most excellent, dude!" I have been

relegated to the later 7Ð10 p.m. slot, when most people, even in a

congested commuting market like Phoenix, are already home watching TV.

 

Why did this happen? Why only a couple of months after my company picked

up the option on my contract for another year in the fifth-largest city in

the United States, did it suddenly decide to relegate me to radio Outer

Darkness? The answer lies hidden in the oil-and-water incompatibility of

these two seemingly disconnected phrases: "Criticizing Bush" and "Clear

Channel." Criticizing Bush? Well then, must I be some sort of rug-chewing

liberal? Not even close. As a boy, I stood on the grass in a small Arizona

town square when Barry Goldwater officially began his 1964 presidential

run. And I was there for the last official event of the Goldwater

campaign. My job was to recruit and manage my fellow junior-high and

high-school conservatives in a phone bank operation, calling supporters to

fill up as many buses as possible to help pack the stadium -- a show of

strength for the nation's television viewers. Of course that's an

insignificant role to play in a presidential campaign, but it was pretty

heady stuff for a 14-year-old kid from Flagstaff.

 

I broke with Goldwater in 1976 over his decision to back Gerald Ford

instead of Ronald Reagan for the Republican presidential nomination. Ford

was a perfectly decent, if ordinary, Republican (who could have taught the

big-spending W. Bush a thing or two about the use of the veto!). But I

took my conservatism seriously. Reagan was clearly the champion of the

conservative cause.

 

Perhaps I'm just anti-military? No. I am proud of my honorable service and

of the Army Commendation Medal I was awarded. I also spent a good deal of

time in the 1980s as a member of the Speakers Bureau of High Frontier,

promoting Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative, a defense policy unlike

today's in that it was actually designed to defend the American people.

 

I have been a Republican precinct committeeman; my county Republican Party

elected me its "Man of the Year" in 1988; I have written speeches for

conservative candidates and office holders; and I have been employed by

statewide and national political organizations and campaigns, including

the National Conservative Political Action Committee. Despite my

disappointment in Goldwater for not supporting Reagan, I was there when a

small band of the faithful -- no more than four or five of us -- gathered

for a potluck dinner to support the creation of a brand-new public-policy

think tank named after "Mr. Conservative." The enterprise blossomed, and I

was honored several months ago to serve as Master of Ceremonies for the

Goldwater Institute's 15th Anniversary Gala.

 

I can assure you then that my criticism of Bush has been on the basis of

long-held conservative principles. It begins with respect for the wisdom

of the Founders and the Constitution's division of power and delegation of

authority, and extends to an adherence to the principles of governmental

restraint and fiscal prudence. It proved to be a message that was more

than a little inconvenient for my employer.

 

Clear Channel Communications, the 800-pound gorilla of the radio business,

owns an astonishing 1,200 stations in 50 states, including Newstalk 550

KFYI in Phoenix, where I do the afternoon program É or did until last

summer. The principals of Clear Channel, a Texas-based company, have been

substantial contributors to George W. Bush's fortunes since before he

became president. In fact, Texas billionaire Tom Hicks can be said to be

the man who made Bush a millionaire when he purchased the future

president's baseball team, the Texas Rangers. Tom Hicks is now vice

chairman of Clear Channel. Clear Channel stations were unusually visible

during the war with what corporate flacks now call "pro-troop rallies." In

tone and substance, they were virtually indistinguishable from pro-Bush

rallies. I'm sure the administration, which faced a host of regulatory

issues affecting Clear Channel, was not displeased.

 

Criticism of Bush and his ever-shifting pretext for a first-strike war

(what exactly was it we were pre-empting anyway?) has proved so serious a

violation of Clear Channel's cultural taboo that only a good contract has

kept me from being fired outright. Roxanne Cordonier, a radio personality

at Clear Channel's WMYI 102.5 in Greenville, S.C., didn't have it as good.

Cordonier, who worked under the name Roxanne Walker, was the South

Carolina Broadcasters Association's 2002 Radio Personality of the Year.

That apparently wasn't enough for Clear Channel. Her lawsuit against the

company alleges that she was belittled on the air and reprimanded by her

station for opposing the invasion of Iraq. Then she was fired.

 

They couldn't really fire me, at least without paying me a substantial sum

of money, but I was certainly belittled on the air for opposing the war.

The other KFYI talk-show hosts -- so bloodthirsty that they made Bush

apologists and superhawks Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity sound moderate --

vilified me almost daily. As a former radio-station owner myself, it was a

little hard to believe management would allow one of their key hosts to be

trashed day in and day out on their own airwaves. After all, we sell radio

time on the basis of its ability to influence people's behavior. A wiser

programming approach would have been to showcase me as an object of

curiosity, with a challenge to listeners to see if they could discover

where I had gone wrong or how I was missing the imminent threat Iraq posed

to the American people. No doubt the constant vilification I received and

my heterodoxy on the war cost me audience during the interlude. It was

certainly enough to get pictures of me morphing into those of the French

president posted on the Free Republic Web site during the "freedom fries"

silliness. A banner there read, "Boycott Charles Chirac Goyette at KFYI

radio Phoenix, AZ! Protest against the Charles Goyette Show from 4-7pm at

KFYI for his leftist subervsive [sic] Bush-bashing rants. Turn off KFYI

radio for the Charles Goyette Show! No liberal scum talk shows on KFYI!"

Radio does provoke people, doesn't it?

 

One Clear Channel executive had me take an unexpected day off for the sin

of reporting the breaking news on March 27, 2003, that neocon hawk Richard

Perle, of the Defense Policy Board, had relinquished his chairmanship

under scrutiny of his business dealings and for blaspheming that Donald

Rumsfeld was the worst Secretary of Defense since Robert McNamara. So

great were these transgressions that the radio gods themselves must have

been aghast at my impiety. I explained in conference-room confrontations

that both positions were completely respectable points of view. The

comparison with McNamara had been made repeatedly in subsequent days in

the mainstream media. I specifically cited "The McLaughlin Group" the

following Friday and the New York Times the following Monday, and in

describing the Perle resignation, I relied upon details from both Seymour

Hersh in the New Yorker and from syndicated columnist Arianna Huffington.

"Well, then," they explained, the problem was "the emotionalism" of my

remarks. Imagine that, emotionalism in talk radio? I reminded them that

for years we had run promotions identifying KFYI as "the Place with More

Passion," where the Charles Goyette Show was positioned as "Fearless Talk

Radio!"

 

Clear Channel made it clear -- "With you, I feel like I'm managing the

Dixie Chicks," said my program director -- that they would have liked to

fire me anyway. While a well-drafted contract made that difficult, it did

not prevent them from tucking me away outside prime time.

 

So I'm a talk-show war casualty. My contract expires in a few more months

and -- my iconoclasm being noted -- it is not likely it will be renewed.

Among 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. Likewise my replacements in the

afternoon drive slot, brought in for glamorizing the war and billed as

"The Comedy Channel meets Talk Radio." If you remember the "Saturday Night

Live" skit "Superfans" with Mike Myers and Chris Farley -- "Who's

stronger, God or da Bulls?" "Da Bulls!" -- then you get the idea. Only

instead of "da Bulls," it's three hours every afternoon of "da Bush!"

Expect to hear more insightful topics like "So Who's Tougher: Michael

Jordan or Donald Rumsfeld?"

 

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. At least at Clear Channel, there's only one word for the

belief that talk radio is still a fair and fearless search for the truth:

"Un-Bull-ieveable!

[Gene Honda Civic]

Here's a link, I posted it in another thread, but it definately pertains here. It's a Database of all of the radio stations owned by clear channel.

 

Clear Channel station search

 

Don't forget that clear channel owns the House of Blues chain. So in order to 1) have you music played on the air. 2) have you music be heard live to a small to medium sized audience. You have to go through clear channel. And that's not even getting to the whole cookie-cutter KISS-line radio stations across the land that play only 25 artists from 5 record labels.

 

I'm sure there's no payola involved

 

Add to that a gross case of censorship and clear channel, you were already on my list... you've moved up to #2

 

:fyou Clear Channel