What does someone with a media job have to do to get fired in Milwaukee? Beats us. Set a live cougar on fire and let it loose in the downtown? At this rate, that might not even be enough. Just ask Mark Belling.
After a one-week suspension, Belling returned to his seat at WISN as Milwaukee's top conservative shock-jock after referring to voting Hispanics as \wetbacks."" Belling and Clear Channel both apologized, but Belling carried little of this repentance back to the studio.
""Many hope or fear that this will change me and my program and that I'll be on my constant guard and will pull punches,"" The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel quoted Belling as saying in his return episode. ""This show ain't changing at all.""
This isn't entirely true. The first show back sported some changes. Belling insulted a minority group, lesbians, without using the word ""wetback"" once. Because in a tolerant society, using a racial slur in the office gets you fired.
So what does it take to get fired in Milwaukee? Even coaching the Brewers seems to carry some job security these days. But Belling works in a media job, and there is one sure-fire way to get fired in the media: interrupt an episode of ""CSI: New York.""
After Yasser Arafat passed away, the CBS breaking news team cut away from the episode of the ""CSI"" spinoff to air a special report on potentially the second most important story coming out of the Middle East this year. But the widespread chaos his death could cause was not as important as the second most important ""CSI"" show. CBS issued an apology the following day, scheduled a re-broadcast of the show and fired the producer who made the switch the day after that.
It's nice to know that America has priorities-and one of those priorities is the top two, or possibly three, ""CSI"" programs and conservative radio hosts. Belling joked that a swipe at women on his show was a way of ""testing how tight his leash was."" If he unveiled a crime investigation segment, he wouldn't have any.
