KFI’s John And Ken, Clear Channel Denounced For “Hate Profiteering”
The day before Clear Channel‘s shareholder meeting in San Antonio, Texas, the National Hispanic Media Coalition delivered over 16,000 signatures to the company’s board of directors demanding that Clear Channel remove John Kobylt and Kenneth Chiampou from KFI AM in Los Angeles. Despite having what NHMC calls a “zero tolerance” policy that prohibits discrimination, the organization says Clear Channel Radio exhibits a pattern of hateful rhetoric, particularly on The John and Ken Show. The coalition accuses Clear Channel of a “pattern of hate profiteering, and particularly its blatant disregard for the atmosphere of hate and intolerance that John and Ken are breeding in the Los Angeles area.” A letter accompanying the signatures says the company fails to abide by its own policy and allows Kobylt and Chiampou “to repeatedly release the private contact information of private figures, leading to hundreds of death threats and harassing phone calls from Clear Channel listeners.” According to the letter, the pair’s targets include skilled workers who happen to be “people of color and the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community”. The letter says more than 30 companies have pulled advertising from The John And Ken Show. Clear Channel and its Premiere Networks faced a similar controversy when advertisers were spooked by public outcry over comments Rush Limbaugh made about a law student seeking health insurance coverage of contraceptives.
Related: LA City Council Members Want To End Racist And Sexist Speech On Radio
Here’s an idea: if you don’t like what you’re hearing on the radio, change the channel. But the left just can’t seem to grasp that idea – when they don’t like what they’re hearing they insist those uttering be silenced.
There goes the U. S. Constitution down the drain . . .
This right here.
Boo fucking hoo if they don’t agree with John and Ken’s agenda. I’m a regular listener and though at some points they can say some pretty inflammatory shit, it’s never said just for the sake of being hateful or looking to incite people.
If clear channel bends over on this there is going to be a huge uproar.
The opposition to John and Ken has far less to do with “hate speech” than with the fact that these two regularly shoot holes into the hidden agendas of California politicians on both local and state levels. John and Ken are hardly what might be considered right-wing conservatives, but leftist politicians will try and silence anyone who opposes them and alerts the public to destructive, self-serving policies, which is what John and Ken do best.
Don’t bring the US Constitution into this — it has nothing to do with it. The government isn’t censoring anyone here. Sure, we do have the right to say whatever we want (within reason). And people have the right to try and pull it down from the flagpole if they don’t like it. Clear Channel doesn’t care who hates John and Ken as long as CC is making money. Once they stop doing that, they’ll be able to blow those boys off the air with a paper fan, which I doubt will happen any time soon. Oh, and I’m a lefty by the way who listens to J&K. Their kind of stupid is rather entertaining.
the right couldnt grasp it either when they forced bill maher off of abc.
Oh, I see. Just “change the channel” is all you have to do.
Read this line again, carefully: “allows Kobylt and Chiampou “to repeatedly release the private contact information of private figures, leading to hundreds of death threats and harassing phone calls from Clear Channel listeners.”
How do you “change the channel” on that? How do you “change the channel” when one of their idiot fans is on the phone harassing you, threading your life? When some drooling shock jock fan is in your face with their shit, can you just “change the channel” on your personal reality, savvydude? Are you saying people are obliged to put up with this shit so these little wet fart radio hate mongers can have their presumed freedom of speech? Not a chance.
They release the numbers of PUBLIC figures, mostly politicians and their lackies.
Does it really matter if they’re public figures or not? They release private information over public airwaves. Do you know what “private” means? Perhaps you should call yourself “DictonaryChallenged” instead of “FactChecker”.
Do some soul-searching. Think about what it would be like if some ya-hoos named Johnny Bag and Kenny 0′Douche released your private contact information (because… profit from listeners) to anyone who might want it – for whatever their purposes. It might sound something like this:
“Welcome to the morning show with the Bag O’Douche boys! Let’s see who can we lead to slaughter today! Oh look – somebody who posts inane messages on Deadline Hollywood needs a come-uppance. Here’s her private phone number and email address, listeners! Call her and give her a piece of your mind! (and do it because we said so)”
So it’s okay with you as long as it’s “them” and not “you”?
Am I getting through to you?
How do you prevent your info from being published ? Simple…
DON’T PUT PRIVATE INFO ON A PUBLIC PRESS RELEASE.
Do you hear me now ? Or is that “hate speech” too ?
are you kidding Marko? They never give out phone number of politicians.
If you have a problem with a major corporations making millions in profits using the “so-called” public airwaves, why should you make a fuss? It’s not like the public owns the airwaves. it’s not like clear channel has to uphold certain community standards.
Why don’t these minorities know their place? Sorry your feelings got hurt, but you don’t matter to Clear Channel so suck it up and shut up. It’s a white man’s America. Sorry you weren’t born the right way, but so it goes.
FYI, John and Ken support gay marriage and spoke out against the passing of Prop 8 when it was passed. Just wanted to put that out there.
And what if they didn’t support gay marriage? Don’t they have the right to say that too without harassment?
My point is, they’ve gone one record as supporting gay marriage and spoke out against Prop 8. And yet the LGBT community is claiming they are spreading hate against them.
The NHMC is just trying to tack on every minority possible. Anyone who listens to John and Ken knows they are supportive of gay causes.
Dick Cheney supports gay marriage too. I still think he should be in jail.
These lummoxes are still on the air? Why is talk radio all white right-wing males? That’s why I stopped listening.
16,000 people and not one of them knows how to use the channel changer or the off switch.
J n K call it like it is. One of the few shows that calls public offenders on the carpet for their shortcomings. Are you offended? In the words of Jack Nicholson, “YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH”!
It wasn’t Jack Nicholson, it was a fictional character.
Who ended up in jail for perjury and obstruction of justice, by the way.
Kinda ironic for an example, dontcha think?
Groups like NHMC continue to make Ray Bradbury’s “Farenheit 451″ as relevant — if not more relevant — than ever. Perhaps they should also organize a ban on Campbell’s Alphabet Soup, because while stirring it, kids could spell out some racial slurs.
What irritates this coalition is that John & Ken tirelessly go after the organisations that cow tow to ILLEGAL aliens. There’s that moniker that no one in the MSM will be caught dead using. What J&K also tirelessly go after is the unarguable costs to Los Angeles of illegal immigration. Facts, not slander.
J & K were suspended for a week a few months ago when Whitney Houston died because they referred to her as a crack whore. Uh yeah… she was and it killed her. I guess mentioning the truth gets you suspended these days. I listen to J & K for about an hour every… what was it exactly that got the NHMC so upset? They are certainly a better alternative to that unlistenable drivel of Mark Levin on KABC.
In addition to that… a regular listener could have argued that John meant to say crack addict. When I heard him say that, I thought that is what he meant to say anyway.
John and Ken only hate hypocrisy and elite snobbery. They are populists who have a huge audience because they talk about what people are interested in and for the most part their audience agrees with them. They certainly don’t hate anyone for who they are. Only for what they do.
The issue is that they are not only publicly outing private citizens, but also giving out their private contact info- I presume with the implied encouragement to their listeners to harass said private citizens. If it were only folks in the public eye, it would be different.