Morgan and KSFO host show no Respect to Pelosi and Parent Company Disney

It must be great to be a talk radio host at KSFO. It has been established that you can say pretty much ANY violent or disgusting thing on the air with full management support from:

- The Walt DISNEY Company, specifically, Zenia Mucha, Senior
Vice President, Corporate Communications
- ABC Radio (owned by Disney), specifically John Hare, the President of ABC Radio Inc.
- ABC, Inc, specifically, Heather Rim, Vice President, Communications, ABC, Inc.

They are all just FINE with it. They all know what is being said. What am I talking about? At KSFO, radio 560 AM in San Francisco an ABC Radio station owned by The Walt Disney Company:

• You can talk about torturing and cutting off an Iraqi’s finger and penis. (audio-Brian Sussman) Management supports you.
• You can demand a caller “Say Allah is a whore” (audio - Sussman) and management supports you.
• You can talk about shooting and torturing a black man with electrodes attached to his testicles before you “blow his bleeping brains out” (audio-Lee Rogers, Melanie Morgan). Management supports you.
• You can imitate the editor of the New York Times being electrocuted complete with gruesome sound effects (audio -Tom Brenner "Officer Vic", Sussman, Morgan) and management supports you.
• You can talk about attacking the New York Times (audio-Morgan, Rogers, Brenner)
• You can suggest that someone be:
  -- hog-tied and burned alive (audio Morgan, Rogers, Brenner)
  -- stomped to death (audio Rogers, Morgan) (entire burn and stomp clip here)
  -- castrated and the testicle sack be used as a tobacco pouch (audio Rogers, Brenner)
  and Disney management supports you. ABC Radio management supports you. And of course Jack Swanson, KSFO’s GM, and Morgan’s husband, supports you.

You can lose major advertisers and management supports you.

And then Melanie Morgan gets national attention and is written up by Media Matters and earns her second “Worst Person in the World” award on MSNBC. She gets caught NOT once but TWICE talking about putting a bull’s eye on Speaker-Elect Nancy Pelosi. Morgan incites violence toward the Bay Area’s own Congressional representative. And still management supports her.

At this point even the notoriously lax Disney and ABC Radio management (who seem to care nothing about their brand image) must have told her, “Okay, do one of those fake apologies where you don’t really apologize for what you just said.”

Because that MUST have been what happened after Melanie Morgan said this about Speaker-Elect Nancy Pelosi “We've got a bull's-eye painted on her big, wide laughing eyes.” (audio Morgan, )

Morgan’s “apology” is an opportunity for another joke. This time about getting invited to Speaker-Elect Pelosi’s “fabulous parties” at her swearing in ceremonies.

“I should just suck up and tell Nancy I’m really sorry that I made fun of her “laughing eyes” and get back on her good side because you know there’s there’s (sic) something about a democratic wingding that really gets me going guys.” (laughter) (audio -Morgan, Rogers)

- Melanie Morgan on Disney ABC Radio station KSFO, 560 AM 11/27/2006

Like her President, who can’t bring himself to say the word mistake, in her insincere, joking apology Morgan pretends she was just making fun of Speaker-Elect Pelosi’s eyes.
No. No she wasn’t. Morgan used the terminology of an assassin with a scope on a rifle when referring to the Speaker-Elect of the House.

Please don’t pretend Morgan doesn’t know what the words implied. I don’t think she is stupid. And if it wasn’t part of a pattern of violent talk and slander maybe her management or others could forgive her this one “mistake”. Ms. Morgan knew EXACTLY what she was saying. It wasn’t a slip. She said it twice.

• She knew what it meant when she said “Hang ‘em” about Bill Keller and nine reporters
  
• She knew what she was saying when she falsely accused the LA Times of doctoring their photos
  
• She knew what she was saying when she falsely accused the Chronicle of manipulating photos of Richard Pombo to make him look LIKE A BLACK MAN. (Link)

Being coy and pretending she doesn’t know WHAT she is talking about doesn’t fly when time and time again she insists she DOES know EXACTLY what she is saying. (audio Morgan) Maybe because Lee Rogers gets away with talking about killing millions of Muslims in Indonesia and Brian Sussman can suggest we kill millions of Muslims anywhere we find them; she thought it was okay to talk about putting a bull's-eye on Nancy Pelosi’s eyes, and then give a non-apology? IT. IS. NOT.

I would think that this constitutes inciting violence and might trigger FCC notice. But I guess not. (But hey if anyone cares to write the FCC and complain be my guest.)

So I guess that’s it. Case closed. For Morgan it’s a fake apology and she’s off the hook. Way to buck up the Disney Brand in the closing days of their “official” ownership (we won’t talk about the 52 percent controlling interest you will still have in Citadel.)

I’ve written before about DJ and talk radio hosts being fired for lesser things. Recently Pete Wilson of KGO SINCERELY apologized for an offensive remark that didn’t even BEGIN to reach the levels of violence and offensiveness that Sussman and Rogers regularly spew. KSFO radio hosts Rogers, Morgan and Sussman have a PATTERN of violent talk and anti-“any religion but right-wing Christianity” (By the way, Roger’s “joke” on Nov. 27th about a Buddhist monk cutting off his “woody” was just the latest in a series of comments that combined BOTH elements. (audio Rogers, Morgan, Brenner)

Sometimes I play the audio clips of Morgan, Rogers, Sussman and Brenner to colleagues in the office. They are always flabbergasted. “They ACTUALLY say that on the RADIO? And this is a DISNEY station?” Yep. “How is that even Allowed?”

Because the management knows about it and approves. Disney and ABC Radio station management John Hare knows what is said. He hears it. Nothing happens. People in charge of protecting the Disney brand know about it. Obviously they think Disney is too far away from the name KSFO to care. Nothing happens. I guess you can “Mess with the Mouse” brand as long as you are on commercially supported broadcast radio.

Nice trick hiding behind YOUR parent KSFO radio hosts! Must I point out to you AGAIN that broadcast radio is different from blathering on the sidewalk in front of the federal building? There are agreed upon rules (try saying the f-word see what happens), not only at the federal level, but at the corporate level. But you have really shown the world just how little Disney cares about its image, haven’t you? They must really enjoy being in the mud with you. Way to ignore their memos! That’ll show ‘em!

It would be nice if after a few advertisers heard these clips they were so disgusted by this talk that they pulled their ads. But if the Brian Sussman case is any indication, they would have to lose MORE than a dozen advertisers. Or maybe a few big ones on a national level from the big morning show would make them notice. When it happens I’ll be sure to alert the press. They probably will attribute it to something else like ‘declining revenue due to the Internet’ or ignore it all together. Or they will find some Chronicle reporter like poor Joe Garofoli who is charmed by Morgan and does a nice piece. Garofoli clearly learned not to piss her off and get yelled at like Todd Milbourn did who wrote a real story about her group, MAF, and got called a liar for his trouble.

Why all the tip-toeing around Morgan, Rogers and KSFO? A couple of possibilities.

First, because the 2.7 billion dollar deal to sell ABC Radio to Citadel must go through. Nothing will stop it. What nobody in the press wants to mention is that Citadel needs to divest themselves of 11 of the 122 stations in the new combined network.

And maybe ABC Radio is hoping that KSFO is one of those stations. I mean they have the jewel, KGO. KSFO must make them feel dirty. And KSFO radio hosts have mentioned time and time again that they think the ABC Radio News people are dopes and idiots and their newscasts are crap. I’m thinking KSFO is angling to become a Fox affiliate.

But of course if that happened KSFO wouldn’t be able to sucker all the advertisers and media buyers that they get riding on the Disney coat tails. All the advertisers that assumed that since KSFO is a Disney affiliate they are “innocuous” (as one advertiser wrote me) might not get in the door.

For KSFO morning host Rogers I just hope that his new boss, the Egyptian born Farid Suleman, is a forgiving man. Of course Rogers won’t trust him in his negotiations. Why? Because as Rogers says about Egyptians and other Arab cultures,

“Lying [to Egyptians and Arabs] is as natural as breathing.” (Audio link)
--Lee Rogers, KSFO (An ABC Radio Disney Station) 11/27/2006

Good luck Farid, and watch your back! (Rogers is probably counting on going around Farid to one of the Forstmann’s. Good luck with that, I’m sure Farid won’t notice your end-run.)

But maybe Rogers has photos of Mr. Suleman like he does of his current bosses (audio). But if he doesn’t, Rogers is already lining up his exit strategy. Look for the “health related reasons” card to be played. It’s probably true. I know he makes me sick.

UPDATE 12/01/06:

It seems that this post was picked by by Mike at Crooks and Liars, (1,297,091 page views this week. Hi Mike and C&L readers! The amazing journalist and scholar David Neiwert at Orcinus, 26,270 page views this week, Hi David and Sara and Orcinus readers! At First Draft, by the brilliant journalist/blogger/writer Allison Hantschel, Hi Athenae, Scout, Tena, Holden and FD readers! 20,802 page views this week. And of course during Thanksgiving I got linked from Media Matters, in which Morgan's "painting a bull's-eye" on Pelosio comments got picked up by MSNBC Keith Olbermann who is on TELEVISION! Wheee! I'm sure that the PR people at Disney are THRILLED by this! Over 2 MILLION people now know about Disney Radio hosts Morgan, Rogers, Sussman and Brenner's violent rhetoric directed at Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi, Muslims, Arabs, blacks and of course all liberals.)

Update II 12/01/2006

I've added who the audio clips are from thanks to the suggestion of Eric J. Visiting from Crooks and Liars. Thanks Eric!
I've inserted [] around the Lee Roger's quote about Egyptians and Arbabs for clarity.

“Lying [to Egyptians and Arabs] is as natural as breathing.” (Audio link) --Lee Rogers, KSFO (An ABC Radio Disney Station) 11/27/2006

Update III 1/6/2007 Reposting because I have to clean up links. Corrected a few typos and spelling errors and a technical relationship number between ABC and Citadel