Payback: The Bush Connection to Clear Channel Firing Howard Stern; It's Worse than You Thought.
By Dean Creekmore
I am surprised more people are not a more concerned about the connection between the Bush administration, Clear Channel Radio and Howard Stern. This could possibly the most frightening example of a government using party-friendly corporations to squash dissenting opinions I have ever seen.
Bush, along with other investors purchased the Rangers MLB team. Bush's
investment was a little over $600,000. Tom Hicks then purchased the
Rangers for $250 million. For his investment of $600,000, George W. made
about 14 million on the transaction.
Tom Hicks is now the Vice Chairman of Clear Channel Radio. Clear Channel
went from owning 36 radio stations in the pre 1996 Telecommunications Act
deregulation era, to owning over 1200 now. From 36 (two below the legal
limit at the time) to over 1200! On June 2nd 2003, Michael
Powell, son of Secretary of State Colin Powell, and the FCC voted to
further loosen media ownership rules. Thus, opening the door for Clear
Channel to move into the television arena as well. I wonder if Clear
Channel is appreciative to George Bush and Republican deregulation. And
since Tom Hicks essentially made Mr. Bush a multi-millionaire, I wonder if
George might do him a favor every now and again?
Only after he became critical of Bush and the FCC committee investigations
into broadcast decency, in the wake of boobgate, was Stern kicked off of
the Clear Channel network. The offending conversation that got Stern
booted was from a caller that used the word "n-word." Something that
has happened on that show for ages (most of the time, the comments are
directed at co-host Robin Quivers) and suddenly it is indecent enough to
get him banned from the network.
Now, Stern is convinced, through FCC insiders, that fines are about to be
levied against Infinity Broadcasting, a subsidiary of Viacom. According to
Howard Stern, the last time that happened, while waiting for court
proceedings, the FCC made it impossible for Infinity to do business. What
used to take six weeks was now taking months. The same thing will happen
again. When the FCC comes down with their fines, if Infinity wants to go
to court, business will cease. Not only Infinity Broadcasting, but Viacom
as well. Viacom owns such companies as the CBS networks and MTV. They will
not take the chance on being in the sights of the FCC for the sake of
Howard Stern and will be forced to fire him.
So let's see if I have this correct. Have an audience and be overtly
critical of the government, lose your job, or at least be beaten into
impotency. On the grand scale our first amendment rights are non-existent.
Doesn't it scare people one little bit that one of the most important
and basic freedoms we have is being trounced right in front of their
faces. Freedoms that American soldiers are dying for right now? Do tax
cuts mean that much? Do party hard-liners honestly; have no problem with
this kind of thing from an elected government? Do they just chalk it up
historical corruption, governments have been corrupt forever, and nothing
is going to change that now? Am I just a fringe lunatic that thinks this
is inherently wrong and dangerous? I don't know anymore. It seems as if
conservatives and the general public are content to let this blatant
violation of the Constitution go unchecked, as long as it is their party
doing the violating.
Howard Stern, you can love him or hate him. You can find him entertaining or a vulgar malcontent. But, what you should not be able to do, is shut him up and have him fired because you do not agree with what he says.
And yes, if a Democratic administration were doing this to Bill O'Reilly, I would scream the same thing.
Dean Creekmore dcreekmore@earthlink.net is currently employed in the television broadcasting industry outside of Los Angeles, in Orange County.
