"We are completely and totally apolitical. It makes no difference to us whether it's conservative, liberal, libertarian, whatever it is. We are in the business of attracting listeners. We're not in the business of propagating a certain political agenda. It's just bad business."—John Hogan, CEO of Clear Channel Radio, in an interview for National Public Radio's Fresh Air
"As I talk to people in the radio business, I don't think any Clear Channel manager would be foolish enough to host an anti-war rally. I mean, everyone knows what Clear Channel's politics are."—Eric Boehlert, journalist covering media consolidation for Salon.com, ditto
Last week, I got a voicemail from Tampa resident Bob Suren. The 34-year-old, whom I know, but who declined to be identified in any more depth here than as "a taxpayer, homeowner and voter," was greatly unsettled (not to mention pissed off) by something he alleges he heard on Bay area classic-rock radio station Thunder 103.5 FM on the morning of Wednesday July 23.
"It was the day after the U.S. military had killed Saddam Hussein's sons," recalls Suren. "So I tuned in to hear [Thunder DJ] Ron Diaz going on about how he was glad the 'diaper-head goat-bangers' were dead."
According to Suren, the epithets were used to describe not only Uday and Qusay Hussein, but also an Iraqi reporter who asked a U.S. military official whether or not the sons' deaths rendered the mission to find them a failure. Diaz reportedly used the slurs repeatedly on the air. Suren was sufficiently offended to call the station and complain when he arrived at work; the operator told him to hold for Diaz.
"I didn't expect to be put on the air — I didn't even necessarily want to talk to the DJ," he says. "I just wanted to say that I thought saying racial slurs over the airwaves was ignorant, and promotes ignorance."
As it turned out, Suren didn't get much of a chance to say anything. He says he was four seconds or so into his complaint before Diaz shouted him down, hung up on him, and proceeded to publicly disparage him. Irritated, Suren called back. The operator refused to put Suren through to Diaz again, and hung up on him. Again.
"Had I gotten through, I would've liked to say that I'm not a fan of Saddam Hussein and his sons either, and I guess I'm kind of happy they're dead too," he says. "But using racial slurs isn't the way to go about expressing that sentiment."
Suren says he then called the Bay area offices of Clear Channel, the media monolith that owns Thunder 103.5, and, unable to speak directly to anyone in authority, left a message. He hasn't received a return call.
Clear Channel's Regional Vice President of Programming, Brad Hardin, says he never got a call from Bob Suren, or any listener, regarding anything Ron Diaz may or may not have said on July 23. Given the fact that my three calls to the company's Bay area offices looking for "the program director for Thunder 103.5" were connected to two different voicemail extensions, I find this eminently credible. (My first two messages went unreturned; Hardin got in touch the same day I found a media liaison at the company's San Antonio headquarters who actually seemed interested in the allegations.)
Hardin also says he can't recall hearing Diaz use the words "diaper-head" and "goat-banger," and that Diaz couldn't recall using them. As of this writing, exactly one week after my speaking with Suren about his assertions for the first time, Diaz is in the middle of a vacation; Hardin apparently knows of no one else in the office he can ask whether the morning show in question was recorded, saying the station doesn't archive all of it programming as a matter of course.
Hardin does allow that such charges would certainly have been looked into, but reiterates that he didn't receive a call from Suren.
"If it was said for sure, I would certainly talk to [Diaz] about it, ask if he had to go there, if it was necessary. If [Suren] would've called me, I would've called Ron, and done a little investigative reporting," Hardin says. "I like to do my groundwork before I do anything. I don't even know what the context is."
Hardin speaks to me with a low, weary, indifferent tone that suggests he can't believe a reporter is bothering to check into the whole thing. In fact, he says so.
"I just don't think it's newsworthy," he tells me.
And therein lies the point. Anyone who listens to the radio knows that all kinds of jocks, for all kinds of stations, skate up to and often well past what borders on racism when referring to news of the Middle East these days. It's become pretty much de rigueur for morning-show DJs to break into shitty Foreign Legion accents, make turban jokes, and deride those of us who love our country but really could take a pass on media-sanctioned bigotry, thanks.
It should be newsworthy. It should be fucking outrageous. It's not "circling the wagons in response to these trying times." It's not "reflecting the mood of the country." Adversarial political environments or no, it's racism.
Does anybody really think that, were America to go to war with an African nation, the broadcast of the word "nigger" wouldn't get a DJ working for a national corporation fired, sued and quite possibly jailed? Or that "goat-banger" and "camel-jockey" and "towel-head" are somehow less significant than that ugly bit of Americana?
The encouraged depersonalization and focused enmity of an outside nation or group is not a de facto element of patriotism, kids. It is, however, a primary component of nationalism, a widely researched and historically cited cultivation of antagonistic countrywide mood by governments edging toward imperial or fascist agendas.
Is that what we are?
"I want people to know I'm not some super left-wing, America-hating liberal. I live in the United States by choice," says Bob Suren. "I'm happy living here … but I guess at this time, it's culturally acceptable to insult and hurl slurs at people of Middle Eastern dissent. I guess that's the message they're trying to put forth — that it's OK to hate people from the Mideast."
Scott Harrell can be reached at 813-248-8888 ext. 109, or at scott.harrell@weeklyplanet.com.
This article appears in Aug 7-13, 2003.