MSNBC Fires Host Savage for Wishing AIDS on Caller

Yahoo! News ^ | July 7, 2003 | Ben Berkowitz

[El Conservador]

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Cable news channel MSNBC on Monday fired Michael Savage after the controversial talk show host wished AIDS (news - web sites) on a caller whom he dismissed as "one of the sodomites."

Savage had been under fire from gay rights groups since February when the network announced it had hired the conservative commentator to host a TV version of his popular talk radio show.

Saturday's episode of "The Savage Nation," his 15th since the program's debut in March, featured Savage discussing air travel with callers.

One caller began discussing his experiences, and after an unintelligible part of the call, Savage asked him "So are you one of those sodomists?"

When the caller said, "Yes I am," Savage, reclining in a chair with his arms folded and wearing dark sunglasses, responded, "Oh, you're one of the sodomites! You should only get AIDS and die, you pig!" in a clip of the show hosted on the Web site of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.

An MSNBC representative was not immediately available to comment, but a source familiar with the matter confirmed that the show had been canceled.

GLAAD, which from the start campaigned against MSNBC's hiring of Savage, cheered the cancellation.

"Michael Savage's latest rant made the clearest possible case for why this kind of behavior has no place on any reputable news network," GLAAD spokeswoman Cathy Renna said in a statement.

In addition to his radio and TV show, Savage founded the Paul Revere Society, which advocates closing the U.S. borders, eliminating bilingual education and ending affirmative action programs.

A message left at a number listed for the Paul Revere Society in the northern California city of Mill Valley was not immediately returned.

Savage, who according to his biography on a network Web site holds a doctorate in epidemiology and nutrition science, hosted his unabashedly conservative show from the well-known liberal bastion of San Francisco.

A network source said the show had averaged 347,000 viewers through its first 14 airings, not including three weekends when the show was preempted by news coverage. It had aired Saturdays at 5 p.m. ET.

Savage was hired around the time the network canceled liberal talk-show host Phil Donahue, who in turn reportedly accused MSNBC of trying to "outfox Fox," a reference to Fox News Channel, often characterized as being conservative.

MSNBC is a partnership of the NBC unit of General Electric Co. and Microsoft Corp.

[weegee]

Tell your coworker that he should contract trichinosis.

I don't think that you'd be fired. Especially if it could determined that this was said in a provoked heated personal exchange.

Even if it happened in a common area where other people saw it.

[Conservative til I die]

Doesn't sound like a threat to me. Sounds like an idiot making a prank call to him. Savage's overreaction was ridiculous. What an ass.

[Cultural Jihad]

Ditto. A good talk show host should be able to express revulsion over homosexual practices without cursing or wishing the homosexual caller dead.

What?! If you won't join in the stomp and pout party, then you're a wuss! ;-)

[weegee]

The press still spun the conservative backlash against such actors as "right wing radicals" blacklisting Hollywood actors who spoke out against the war.

There is a double standard at work. We are not on the winning side of the cultural war. Political correctness has won.

[Yaelle]

Ironic that these plants were from the Howard Stern brigade. When I visited this country when I was living in Europe, I had heard ABOUT Howard Stern but had never heard him, so one morning in the car, I tuned him in.

Howard was SCREAMING about the sudden heart attack or lung problem or something that apparently a fellow talk show host was suffering from that day. The news was fresh and Howard was screaming that he hoped the man would die. I thought it was absolutely in bad taste and never listened again. I now know that he was ranting over Don Imus's illness.

I don't remember Howard getting fired for screaming that he hoped another person would DIE from his life-threatening illness.

I don't listen to Savage but I do think that one must be consistent. The above incident was even less provoked than it appears the Savage rant was.

[Cultural Jihad]

Nonsense. While there is a culture war at hand, this event was not the result of it. Mr. Weiner doesn't blame anyone but himself for his actions or their consequences. He apologized for his words. Would that those who purport to follow his words follow those, too.

[Conservative til I die]

If he were on RadioFR, I'd probably can him too. Regardless of what you think about homosexuals, wishing aids on them is like wishing sickle cell on a black American, breast cancer on a woman or a concentration camp on a Jew. It hits home, it hits hard and it is nasty.

As a cancer survivor I agree. While I wouldn't be personally affected by some stranger doing an ass holish thing like wishing cancer on me, I would still think it an absolutely vile thing to say, because of the absolutely cruel intent on the part of the other person.

[Cultural Jihad]

I don't listen to Savage but I do think that one must be consistent.

Are you claiming that Mr. Weiner and Mr. Stern had the same producers? Or are you claiming that we need a law to make the consequences to all bad actions equal?

[Conservative til I die]

Tell your coworker that he should contract trichinosis. I don't think that you'd be fired. Especially if it could determined that this was said in a provoked heated personal exchange.

It doesn't matter what he said in addition to the AIDS comment, the fact is if you or I had said to a gay person "get AIDS and die" (and Savage did make a point of referring to the caller's sexuality, hence the link to the AIDS comment) we'd be out the door within the hour.

[Conservative til I die]

They weren't from the "Howard Stern brigade." The caller referred to "Don and Mike," a pair of Stern knock-offs (the caller himself being a knock-off of the Stern prank callers).

[Symix]

My typos were cause for amusement many times by the fresh minds like yours :)

[weegee]

AIDS is not a homosexual disease (or so the homosexual lobby has said for well over a decade).

Not all companies refer to matters of sexual orientation. There is no federal protection against such speech.

Certainly "sodomite" is an appropriate term; it was even the basis of the term "sodomy law" that refered to certain sexual acts. The word "gay" is a euphomism. Is "queer" like the Nword; are homosexuals allowed to use it but no one else? These are the kinds of questions that Human Resources departments must determine if they are going to get involved.

Choking on sausage is not exclusively a homosexual manner of death either.

The target of the venom was a "protected class". Other persons who receive a deathwish would not be terminated immediately.

Even Ted Turner was permitted to insult the Christians who had ashes on their foreheads at his network.

[weegee]

Have you even listened to his show today? He referenced that he knows that there were groups who wanted to see him off MSNBC.


He didn't want to sound too conspiratorial about it. Search the web. You'll find some of the campaigns to keep him off the air.

He says that he'll survive but he admits he doesn't know what it will bode for his radio show or what the future will bring.

Here's a FAIR report from when he went on the air on MS-NBC


http://www.fair.org/activism/msnbc-savage.html

and an "indie" news organization...

http://www.indybay.org/news/2003/03/1579522.php

[Cultural Jihad]

Even Ted Turner was permitted to insult the Christians who had ashes on their foreheads at his network.

Gee, no one fired the boss?! What an outrage! Ping us when you get a law passed which mandates that all inappropriate speech be treated the same.

[Symix]

Thanks for the link to the East Coast Bob.
Yes they brag this ECB did call Savage and managed to enrage him. It does seem to me this "Savage Attack" was of the same order as any Palestinian terrorist attack.

I wonder - MSNBC was SOOOO quick firing Savage without so much as a little investigation - now that it was proven the attack was staged, that there was a crew's blunder, that Michael Savage apologized for the remarks and offered his 30 years of fighting diseases as a proof that his remarks were of a personal nature to respond in kind to his assaulter.

I wonder if MSNBC is big enough to admit their rash decision was a mistake and they would restore the show?

[Yaelle]

No, no, no. No laws. And producers can fire whomever they wish. I do wonder why Stern wasn't taken to task for his blathering, though. It was horribly offensive. Can you imagine a newscaster reporting the death of a celebrity and even CALMLY adding that he never liked him much, anyway, and it was no great loss? I find Stern's comments to have been more offensive than it sounds Savage was.

[Cultural Jihad]

Well, that all may be true, but is really immaterial to the pouting going on.

[Cultural Jihad]

I wonder if MSNBC is big enough to admit their rash decision was a mistake and they would restore the show?

Why should it concern you? They are a private company. You are free to buy it in a hostile takeover and hire Dr. Savage if you want to, though.

[Hinoki Cypress]

Agreed.

[Symix]

Your statement is ill-phrased I think.

Of course I can be concerned about anything I like.