Randi Rhodes To Do SF-Only Show?

[DavidKaye]

This is not a first amendment issue.. The first amendment involves GOVERNMENT restricting freedom of speech. I"m just disappointed that Randi is apparently such a misogynist..Many women have been raised that way..

I agree. However, I'm not ready to say, "She's that way because she was brought up that way." I don't like it when people play victim. We have the ability to distance ourselves from our upbringing and change ourselves into what we want to be. Pat Montandon shed her white trash upbringing. Wilkes Bashford left his lower working class background behind. Willie Brown refused to sit in the back of the theater or use the "colored" entrance.

The fact is that Randi Rhodes chose to make cheap shots, cheap shots that were neither clever nor even funny. She's brighter than that. But she took the lazy way out. She brought it upon herself.

 

[fandango]

Way to go, Air America. Nice to see that you still stand up for the First Amendment.

If she made her crude remarks in private or in a situation where she was representing only herself I could support her (though what she said wasn't the least bit clever or insightful). HOWEVER, she made the comments at a public gathering sponsored by her employer, a radio network that depends on listeners and advertisers. When you're being paid to represent someone you should do their bidding. If she can't do that then she should freelance and set up her own radio network.

David; I often agree with you, but not this time. While I respect your viewpoint, I see larger issues and a much more complicated story here.

Rhodes was not an employee in the usual sense, since she had a Contract and was probably an independent vendor. If she is an independent, then she certainly does NOT represent AAR without explicit written obligations to the contrary. The SF event was not public as you suppose, but very probably meets the definition of a "private event," since it was physically removed from a public space and attendees had to pay money to KKGN ( Not AAR) to attend. Also; AAR cannot show the harm it claimed when it fired Rhodes -- without the ability to show specific harm, they lose their reason to sever their Contract, and could themselves be sued.

There is strong reason to believe that AAR actually instigated the problem in order to coerce Rhodes into renegotiating a Contract -- this is very probably illegal; and is certainly actionable. I am amazed that it would be so easy for Rhodes to bring this into Court, possibly in a Defamation Suit.

All this is to say there are several sides to this dust-up. AARs position is not by definition, the most correct or complete one. Since AAR Executives there lack the experience in the broadcast industry you personally value, it becomes reasonable to consider that they made a series of serious mistakes on the way to losing their most popular host last week.

fan

 

[coppersmom]

well I'm a big sheila kuehl fan too..especially of true healthcare reform SB 840...but let me ask you a question...If a Hillary advocate like myself had said at an event sponsored by my employer that obama was a f-ing nword....would you have found that acceptable? Would my employer have had the right to can me.?..of course. Sexist jokes are okay..not racist.

Generally in personal services contracts( I am speaking as a lawyer and signatory to several of them) there is the usual boilerplate "morals" clause..which says in effect that if you do or say something that brings disrepute on your employer...you can lose your job. It doesn't mean that they have to fire someone..only that they can suspend or fire you.

I'm not privy to the specifics of this contract..but I understand from statements from both AAR and RR that she decided to leave after they balked at her behavior. None of us owns the microphone or the signal so we have no inherent right to either. I'm sure RR will be fine and thrive in her new radio environment.

I still understand that many women..even some as apparently vigorous and strong as RR...have been raised to think that women are less valuable than their male counterparts..it's deeply ingrained..and they don't flinch at telling sexist jokes that mock women ..where they would never tell a racist joke..ie: her constant harping on her show about Hillary's vagina..I couldn't listen to it after about five times..it wasn't funny and it was misogynist.and it wasn't well-researched or provocative analysis...period.

 

[LKellerIII]

I had somehow missed this controversy, so when it was brought up on this board, I naturally had to google around and find out about it. I was a bit shocked - not because I don't hear those words all the time, but because they were being used in such a crude and inarticulate way by a radio commentator who is normally articulate, and speaks from an informed viewpoint. What she said was not only crude, it was just stupid.

 

[DavidKaye]

I'm not privy to the specifics of this contract..but I understand from statements from both AAR and RR that she decided to leave after they balked at her behavior.

My impression is that the Nova M people were just waiting to snatch up Randi Rhodes, being one of the hottest personalities in talkradio at this time. And to look at the Nova M line-up versus the Air America line-up, AA is downright anemic. AA's hottest property is probably Thom Hartmann and he isn't even theirs. He's independent and sells his show to anybody, including both AA and Nova M.

This leads me to wonder if this was a stunt by Randi to get out of her contract, given that the stuff she did onstage was nothing like what she does on the radio. DJs have been doing that kind of thing for decades.

 

[NewsVet]

I'm not privy to the specifics of this contract..but I understand from statements from both AAR and RR that she decided to leave after they balked at her behavior.

My impression is that the Nova M people were just waiting to snatch up Randi Rhodes, being one of the hottest personalities in talkradio at this time. And to look at the Nova M line-up versus the Air America line-up, AA is downright anemic. AA's hottest property is probably Thom Hartmann and he isn't even theirs. He's independent and sells his show to anybody, including both AA and Nova M.

Huh? The "NovaM line-up" consists of Malloy and Rhodes. NovaM's leased station in Phoenix also carries Hartmann, Maddow, and Elliot from Air America, Stephanie Miller and Bill Press from Jones, and local talker Jeff Farias. Hartmann's calls are screened by and his show board-oped by Air America in New York, so his show sounds like an Air America show to me.

 

[DavidKaye]

Huh? The "NovaM line-up" consists of Malloy and Rhodes. NovaM's leased station in Phoenix also carries Hartmann, Maddow, and Elliot from Air America, Stephanie Miller and Bill Press from Jones, and local talker Jeff Farias. Hartmann's calls are screened by and his show board-oped by Air America in New York, so his show sounds like an Air America show to me.

My mistake. The Nova website a few days ago listed a schedule which included those folks you mentioned and I assumed that some of them were NovaM and some were being redistributed by them under some kind of arrangement. I guess the schedule was not a network schedule but a streaming schedule. Misleading if you ask me.

I notice that the site is now totally remade. I have a feeling that this was in the works. The web page is a major redesign, something that isn't usually done quickly.

 

[fandango]

well I'm a big sheila kuehl fan too..especially of true healthcare reform SB 840...but let me ask you a question...If a Hillary advocate like myself had said at an event sponsored by my employer that obama was a f-ing nword....would you have found that acceptable? Would my employer have had the right to can me.?..of course. Sexist jokes are okay..not racist.

We dont' quite agree beyond Sheila, but I don't care. I bring my original issue back, because you didn't quite answer my question in my previous post. I think it is a very important question that goes well beyond politics or broadcasting and affects all of us.

You are in a good position here, to have an opinion worth sharing: Should an employer be able to defame a contract employee in order to force that employee to renegotiate his/her contract? AAR lawyers apparently said as much during a meeting with RR's Lawyers.

I like blue comedy. The problem, though, is whether it's really funny. If it isn't, it turns ugly in a hurry. Blue comedy is a high-wire act. Still; nobody but a mediocre comic (or a lame politician) deserves to lose their job over a joke that goes bad.

I don't enjoy comedy that is what I call 'sadistic.' No misogyny. No racism. Don't hurt people and expect me to laugh. Don't pick on or abuse people and expect me to laugh. This means I don't like hearing the word n*ger as a punchline in a joke, any more than I like to hear a woman called names based solely on her gender.

I just don't laugh at abuse. These things 'break reality' for me, but my sense of offense is my own business; not the comic's. It only becomes my business if the entertainer in question tells me to take his foul language seriously and act on it (the way Limbaugh and Fox News often do).

Generally in personal services contracts( I am speaking as a lawyer and signatory to several of them) there is the usual boilerplate "morals" clause..which says in effect that if you do or say something that brings disrepute on your employer...you can lose your job. It doesn't mean that they have to fire someone..only that they can suspend or fire you.

I'm not privy to the specifics of this contract..but I understand from statements from both AAR and RR that she decided to leave after they balked at her behavior. None of us owns the microphone or the signal so we have no inherent right to either. I'm sure RR will be fine and thrive in her new radio environment.

We agree on this one. We don't know what was in RR's contract; only what AAR said; and what RR said. RR's contract was apparently a little unusual, however.

I still understand that many women..even some as apparently vigorous and strong as RR...have been raised to think that women are less valuable than their male counterparts..it's deeply ingrained..and they don't flinch at telling sexist jokes that mock women ..where they would never tell a racist joke..ie: her constant harping on her show about Hillary's vagina..I couldn't listen to it after about five times..it wasn't funny and it was misogynist.and it wasn't well-researched or provocative analysis...period.

Too many of us are raised to hate ourselves for all kinds of bogus reasons. This is a damned fool response to put on a Radio Board; but self-hatred affects the broadcasting business just as much as it affects any other business. Misogyny is a major issue for you -- I don't know whether or not it is for RR. I do know that you both run great shows that are consistently valuable for me to listen to, and I hope RR didn't denounce HRC just because they are both women.

IN the meantime, I am still concerned over her treatment no matter what she said while not on-mike. I am not persuaded it is OK for AAR to gratuitously break a Contract just because "broadcasting is a tough business," or because "RR is a misogynist and her joke wasn't funny anyway." She should be treated better than that. You should be treated better than that. Even the people here that I disagree with, should be treated better than that.

fan