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Payback: The Bush Connection to
Clear Channel
Firing Howard Stern -- It's Worse than You Thought
by Dean Creekmore
www.dissidentvoice.org
March 9, 2004
First Published in
OpEd News.com
I
am surprised more people are not more concerned about the connection
between the Bush administration, Clear Channel Radio and Howard Stern. This
could possibly be 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 Texas 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 “nigger”. 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 to 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
is currently employed in the television broadcasting industry outside of Los
Angeles, in Orange County.