View Single Post
  #1  
KevinTheOmnivore KevinTheOmnivore is offline
Mocker
KevinTheOmnivore's Avatar
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Brooklyn, NY
KevinTheOmnivore is probably a spambot
Old Feb 13th, 2003, 05:20 PM        More proof that high ratings do NOT equal intelligence.....
FAIR-L
Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting
Media analysis, critiques and activism

ACTION ALERT:
GE, Microsoft Bring Bigotry to Life
Hate-talk host Michael Savage hired by MSNBC

February 12, 2003

The latest hire by the cable news network MSNBC-- co-owned by General
Electric/NBC and Microsoft-- is Michael Savage, a radio talkshow host
noted for his unabashed bigotry. Savage is scheduled to have his own
weekly one-hour show on MSNBC beginning in March.

Savage routinely refers to non-white countries as "turd world nations" and
charges that the U.S. "is being taken over by the freaks, the cripples,
the perverts and the mental defectives" (San Francisco Bay Guardian,
9/20/00). In a recent broadcast he justified ethnic slurs as a national
security tool: "We need racist stereotypes right now of our enemy in order
to encourage our warriors to kill the enemy," he explained (San Francisco
Chronicle, 2/6/03).

"Turd world" immigrants are a frequent target of Savage's anger: "You open
the door to them, and the next thing you know, they are defecating on your
country and breeding out of control" (Oregonian, 4/24/02).

At times Savage's arguments echo the conspiratorial scapegoating of the
white supremacist movement: "With the [Latino] population that has
emerged, since they breed like rabbits, in many cases the whites will
become a minority in their own nation... The white people don't breed as
often for whatever reason. I guess many homosexuals are involved. That is
also part of the grand plan, to push homosexuality to cut down on the
white race" (San Francisco Bay Guardian, 9/20/00).

Commenting on the "Million Mom March" in favor of gun control (which he
dubbed the "Million Dyke March"), he dismissed organizers' reference to
American children killed by guns (5/15/00): "They’re not kids, they’re
ghetto slime... they’re the same kids that are in Sierra Leone toting
AK47s."

Misogyny and homophobia are staples of Savage's show as well as racism. In
his book Savage Nation, he argues that Sen. Hillary Clinton and Supreme
Court justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sandra Day O'Connor have "feminized
and homosexualized much of America, to the point where the nation has
become passive, receptive and masochistic."

Discussing student volunteers distributing food to the homeless in San
Francisco, Savage declared that "the girls from Branson [school] can go in
and maybe get raped... because they seem to like the excitement of it.
There's always the thrill and possibility they'll be raped in a dumpster
while giving out a turkey sandwich" (San Francisco Bay Guardian, 9/20/00).

In announcing the hire, MSNBC president Erik Sorenson described Savage as
"brash, passionate and smart," and promised that he would provide
"compelling opinion and analysis with an edge."

A recent episode of the channel's Donahue program (2/10/03) featured a
full-hour, one-on-one interview with white supremacist Jared Taylor. Does
MSNBC believe that promoting hatred is a way for the struggling channel to
build an audience?


ACTION: If you'd like to express your opinion on Michael Savage hosting a
show on MSNBC, you can write to the cable channel directly.


CONTACT:

MSNBC Feedback
mailto:feedback@msnbc.com

Erik Sorenson, MSNBC President
mailto:Erik.Sorenson@MSNBC.com

As always, please remember that your comments are taken more seriously if
you maintain a polite tone. Please cc fair@fair.org with your
correspondence.

----------
Reply With Quote