new talk radio rules shorter leashes

New Talk Radio Rules: Shorter Leashes, Quicker Hooks

Jessica McBride's firing from 620 WTMJ-AM shows that in the post-Don

Imus talk radio era, gaffes and offensive speech lead station

officials to quicker action.

Tim Cuprisin, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's radio and TV critic

chronicles McBride's rapid removal, and mentions also the fast

indefinite suspension by Jerrel Jones of WNOV-AM's "Word Warriors"

host Mike McGee.

McGee had gone on a disgusting and cruel rant about the tragic death

of Katherine Sykes, the mother of rival talk show host Charlie Sykes.

I praised Jones on this blog for his swift action.

And I made this point, which relates also to why McBride was removed:

"The airwaves are already too full of intolerance and degrading talk.

Let's hope that [McGee's replacement] makes use of his air time

without making a sometimes nasty radio format even worse."

I've also posted about other offensive local talkers, such as

WISN-AM's Mark Belling, who equated breast-feeding in a long segment

with "taking a crap" (his words) in public.

But back to McBride and McGee: What is interesting about their cases

is that both involved insensitive talkers using the death of innocent

people to make irrelevant, politically-tinged, tone-deaf commentary

when the only thing called for in that circumstance was respectful

silence or expressions of condolence.