Everyone loves to trash eality"" TV shows. And between bikini-clad bachelorettes, worm-eating contestants and celebrity ""survivors,"" there is certainly more than enough to criticize.
However, what should worry Americans more than trashy entertainment is trashy news shows. These days, we expect entertainment shows to be outlandish. However, many people look to radio and television news programs as a main source of information. Unfortunately, some of these shows disguise themselves as intelligent, thought-provoking news coverage, but in reality are hosted by so-called ""experts"" who use their positions to spread ignorant hate speech.
Fairness and Accuracy in Media Reporting, a media watchdog group, released an alert last month condemning MSNBC for hiring talk show host Michael Savage. The cable news network--co-owned by General Electric/NBC and Microsoft--will air Savage's shows beginning this month.
What's wrong with Savage? In his career, he has hosted programs trashing feminists, racial minorities, people with disabilities and residents of non-white countries, which he routinely refers to as ""turd world nations."" Basically, this move was one step above hiring David Duke as a host.
In another show, Savage complained of the Latino population in America, saying that ""since they breed like rabbits, in many cases the whites will become a minority in their own nation."" He also commented, ""You open the door to them and the next thing you know they are defecating on your doorstep and breeding out of control.""
In another inflammatory program, he mocked the Million Mom March held in favor of gun control as the ""Million Dyke March"" and laughed at the protesters' reference to American children killed by guns, saying ""They're not kids, they're ghetto slime ... they're the same kids that are in Sierra Leone toting AK47s.""
How interesting that Savage will be broadcasting his ""opinions"" on MSNBC, the same channel whose Internet site praises itself for celebrating Black History Month by ""examining achievements surrounding ... African-Americans and how they are overcoming challenges in American society."" Challenges like hate-filled rhetoric spouted by your own employees?
Yet MSNBC president Erik Sorenson describes Savage as ""brash, passionate and smart"" and promised he would give ""compelling opinion and analysis with an edge.""
If you need another example of American media gone awry, turn to ""The Tom Leykis Show,"" aired in more than 50 markets. One show focused on the ""benefits"" of dating women who are ""all messed up in the head because they were abused or molested."" According to Leykis, these women are likely to ""put out or more likely to be good in bed."" He then told listeners there is nothing wrong with trying to find such women and to ""go for the gold.""
You might expect ignorant comments like these to come from some crackpot militiaman who posts them on the Internet or hands out pamphlets on State Street. But these opinions are broadcast by major outlets owned by powerful companies like General Electric and CBS.
The root of the problem is that in recent years commercial broadcast has been changed by deregulation. These changes have given power to a handful of companies, whose investments spread throughout the business and media worlds. These profit-driven conglomerates are more interested in feeding viewers to advertisers than serving the public interest.
Even worse, the Federal Communications Commission is considering lifting even more regulations. This way, companies who air trash like Leykis and Savage can buy even more media outlets and spread their messages of ignorance further.
We should keep our eyes on the FCC and fight increased media conglomeration. However, in the meantime, if we want to stop offensive programming, we need to play the profit-driven media's game of looking at this in a strictly business-like fashion.
The only shows these companies broadcast are ones that sell advertising--so we need to make sure offensive programs cannot sell ads. If you see an offensive broadcast, call or e-mail the network and complain. Then contact the advertisers and tell them you'd rather see them spend their money on quality programming. It can be hard to keep track of these programs, but keep updated with groups such as Media Watch at http://www.mediawatch.com and FAIR at http://www.fair.org.
It might be difficult, but it is not impossible to have offensive or hate-filled speech removed from America's airwaves. Last summer, after a seven-year-old Philadelphia girl escaped kidnappers by chewing through duct tape, Dallas-based talk show host Mikey Esparza commented on air, ""That's why I don't use duct tape. That's why I use nylon rope."" In July, Media Watch ran a successful campaign to remove him from the air, and he was eventually fired.
We are living in a media environment where money talks. Don't let yours support hate and violence.
