(10 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)
Could this be part of the ‘Change’ we’re not only looking for but this Country needs?
Just caught a short report on Charlotte’s local news at WCNC 36, not up on the site yet, about the firing of a Conservative Radio talk show host, one Jeff Katz.
Don’t know him and never listened to him, frankly conservative radio and tv news shows give me a freakin headache, and I don’t get headaches, no news just blathering opinion, which we find way too much all over the span of the mainstream outlets now, as they say “like assholes, everyones got one!”.
As it wasn’t up on the WCNC TV news site I visited the Charlotte Observer where I found this:
Jeff Katz, whose conservative zeal and verbal swordsmanship have been a mainstay of afternoon drive time for two years, was fired Monday by WBT-AM (1110).
Rick Jackson, WBT general manager, said he could not discuss the reason.
Which is also what the TV News report stated, and the only hint given for the possible firing was this:
In 2007, a local Muslim group called for an advertising boycott of his show, complaining Katz spewed hateful remarks about their religion.
Could that be the reason, or just one of many? Are we going to start seeing a return towards journalism and discussion, respectable debate of idea’s and ideologies? Could what has been sold as conservative opinion blathered over the public owned airwaves actually be turning to real conservative ideal’s and not hate talk and the drum beat of fear?
Maybe maybe not, but we can hope we start seeing and living in a more civil society with moral standards, can’t we!
Katz, 44, was named to the “Heavy Hundred” list of top talk show hosts in the nation by the radio trade magazine Talkers this year, but his combative nature with callers who disagreed with him led to occasional on-air friction.
Katz will be replaced by Tara Servatius, a Creative Loafing columnist. The paper ‘Creative Loafing’ went defunct, from my understanding, not to long ago as did the many found in cities around the country. I’m north of Charlotte so only was able to grab it on rare occasions, but it’s still online as I’m sure the others are as well.
is there a trend starting, hopefully, towards real journalism with facts not conjecture? Maybe this description of Servatius may shed a little light, at least on the local scene here in Charlotte:
Jackson said Servatius, who comes from a journalistic background, will bring a new style to the afternoon shift.
“She spends hours combing through the files researching her points,” he said. “People want facts rather than someone spouting an opinion. We may see a new kind of a talk show host in Tara.”
Hummm, sounds abit Maddow or KO, and a some others, style. Or a shift to what most NPR type discussions are, you know real journalism, real debate.
Apparently this afternoon Charlotte can find out abit more as
Jackson said he and Bill White, WBT’s program director, will go on the air Tuesday in Katz’s afternoon shift to talk to listeners about the change.
“It’s kind of a face-the-music thing for us, for people who want to call and vent,” he said.
Could that last sentence be another hint into the firing, maybe after he might have been carrying the hate/fear message way to far? Will other outlets start seeing the “face-the-music” meme?
You can stream the station live and listen in this afternoon, this Katz spot was the 3PM to 6 PM EST slot, to find out more.
Lets hope it’s a trend that cleans up the airwaves and the ‘Change’ we need in that area of this Society!!
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has resulted in a mood change on the street. It’s not as if everyone suddenly started whistling zippety-do-da, it’s more in the ‘feel’ of the city when I’m in DC.
Is Rush Limbaugh going to go off the air? No, of course not. His audience will shrink a little, because his brand of fact-less spew is a luxury that the NASCAR conservatives cannot afford when they can’t put food on the table.
The bastard recently had the balls to call this the “Obama Recession”. What a sniveling coward he is, he’s got nothing, so he blames a recession that started in DECEMBER 2007 on the man that is not yet President a year later. (Hannity jumped on it also, but he was at least smart enough to stop when the market rallied)
The mood of the country will change, the adults are in charge again, and having the adults in charge will calm a lot of frayed nerves.
for the Limbaughs, Savages, (Michael) Reagans, etc.
There was a time I occasionally listened to talk radio–back in the days that many are too young to remember–when there were non-political doctors, financial advisors, handymen, etc. on the programs, giving free advice to listeners. Then came the hijack and complete take over of talk radio by the RW nuts spewing their anger, ignorance and hatreds for the last couple of decades, with no restraints by their sponsors or stations.
I hope their time in the limelight is ending, and that there is honest analysis of the damage they’ve done to this country and the world. If there is anything to karma–all the people responsible–from the ones behind the mikes, to the ones who put them and kept them there–are in for a big wallop of it.