The Empire Strikes Back

It goes without saying that when Disney/ABC moved to shut down the website Spocko's Brain a few weeks back, a firestorm has erupted. And of course, according to the thin-skinned hosts of KSFO in San Francisco, it's the fault of us evil liberals.

The aforementioned hosts, Melanie Morgan, Brian Sussman, Officer Vic and Lee Rodgers were in full damage control mode in a special on-air broadcast last Friday afternoon. And of course, not surprisingly, they played the part of the helpless victim. Prior to the show, Morgan fired off an email to over a million conservatives, claiming that liberal bloggers were trying to get her fired. She even had the email published at conservative blog World Net Daily. According to her, she is "the target ... of an effort by liberal bloggers to get me fired for engaging in what these far-left activists are calling 'hate speech.' " Morgan stated that this "move by liberal activists to silence conservative radio hosts comes after the failure of the left-wing Air America radio network."

This show was a damage control effort aimed at reversing the flight of their advertisers. Morgan's co-hosts defended her email blast by saying that the show streams to thousands of people that listen on the Internet. What the hosts did not say is that advertising is not broadcast on the internet stream. The callers from outside the immediate Bay Area listening area will never hear a KSFO advertisement without travelling to KSFO's broadcast range. As such, Morgan's email served only to jam their phone lines with a self-selected conservative activist constituency. Dissenting viewpoints never had a chance to get through the busy signals.

They did, however, allow a few critics to voice their grievances. Morgan read an email from someone named Jay, who spoke of Morgan's effort to lean on movie theater owners to keep Michael Moore's movie, Fahrenheit 9/11, from being screened in theaters, via her dummy organization Move America Forward. She claimed that she did nothing that could be construed as attempting to silence Moore's freedom of expression. Uh huh.

You can read more at Media Matters for America, which has been heavily documenting recent events involving KSFO and Spocko. In addition, Mike Stark has been chronicling events, and even called in to Friday's KSFO broadcast. Both Media Matters and Stark have audio snippets of the show. And don't forget Spocko, the guy who started it all.

The wrath of Spocko

One mere blogger took on Disney, and so far, he's winning.

'Spocko' is a blogger who became increasingly offended by the vicious right-wing talk show hosts on KSFO in San Francisco, part of Disney's ABC radio division. And he wasn't going to let it slide. Spocko posted audio clips and transcripts of the hosts' programs on his blog and decided to hit Disney where it really hurts, by setting out on a letter-writing campaign that led a few blue-chip national advertisers to flee the station. Disney responded with a cease-and-desist letter to Spocko and his ISP, effectively leading to the closing of his web site, "Spocko's Brain".

KSFO is perhaps one of the most ultra-right-wing talk radio stations in America, in contrast to their co-owned, more left-leaning KGO. Spocko alleges that hosts such as Melanie Morgan (pictured), Lee Rogers, Tom Brenner and Brian Sussman endorse torture, bash Muslims, spew racist rhetoric and have even encouraged threats against their 'enemies', such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the editor of the New York Times.

Spocko recorded the station's programming and posted audio files on his site, calling attention to the hate speech. He also began sending letters to KSFO's advertisers, including AT&T, Bank of America, Visa, MasterCard and others, pointing out the station's content and directing them to his blog to hear proof, via his audio files. He also noted that Rogers is the local voice for AT&T radio ads, and that Morgan likewise voices ads for Cingular Wireless.

The campaign was effective. Netflix, MasterCard, Bank of America, and most recently, Visa pulled their advertising from the station. According to Spocko, Federal Express, AT&T and Kaiser Permanente are weighing their departure as well.

Staffers at KSFO fought back. Someone from the station even threatened Spocko, and revealed his true identity on a counter blog. The same person also threatened legal action for posting airchecks of the hosts, as well as violent retaliation. On December 22, corporate stepped in, as ABC Radio's lawyers sent a cease-and-desist order to Spocko and his ISP, claiming unauthorized use of copyrighted material (the sound files). The ISP, trying to avoid legal hassles, gave Spocko one week to pull the sound files, and when he did not comply, citing "Fair Use" copyright provisions, they moved to shut down his site on January 2. Since Spocko lacks the financial resources to take on Disney, Spocko's Brain is currently offline.

What has happened since is likely to mushroom into a full-scale storm. Mike Stark of Calling All Wingnuts brought to light Spocko's situation on Daily Kos. Many other blogs (almost two hundred as of this posting) have also reported on Spocko's plight. As this story unfolds, it could have some serious ramifications on talk radio's ethical responsibility to its advertisers, and most importantly, the community at large. We wish Spocko the best of luck in his fight.

You can read a Google cache of Spocko's site here. Online Blogintegrity has saved the audio files as well.

BIG UPDATE: This thing is blowing up! Since the word got out, roughly 1,400 blogs and news sites have reported on Spocko's plight. Quite a few are now hosting Spocko's audio files of KSFO programming. Mike Stark wrote a few more articles for Daily Kos and Huffington Post (which includes mp3 files). And Spocko's Brain is back online, with Marc Perkel offering to host it. And you can hear snippets of the KSFO audio at YouTube. Whatever side of the political spectrum you may be on, you certainly can't deny that this could be a test case for all independent bloggers and their conflicts with large corporations and entities. Stay tuned.

The Young Turks hire ambush reporter Mike Stark

Blogger, Marine Corps veteran, University of Virginia law student, renegade reporter and media prankster Mike Stark has been making quite a name for himself this year.

For awhile, via his weblog Calling All Wingnuts and his posts on the Daily Kos, he has entertained many with recordings of his stealth ambush calls to a variety of conservative radio hosts.



He slipped in a Viagra reference on Rush Limbaugh's show, not too long after the noted prescription drug enthusiast got busted for smuggling the sexual enhancement pills into the Dominican Republic.

He angered Bill O'Reilly so much just by mentioning Keith Olbermann's name that the Big Giant Head threatened to sic FOX Security on him, obviously not realizing at that moment that his radio show is syndicated by Westwood One.

Stark has also been a thorn in the side of various politicians and TV personalities. He suggested to FOX News talking head Brian Kilmeade that he forgo the expensive suits and haircuts and go fight in Iraq.

And just this past summer, he punked Hannity on his FOX show showing us all what we already knew.

In short, he's likely the guy that many at FOX News most love to hate. For that matter, the rest of the conservative media doesn't take kindly to him either.

Things got a bit more serious earlier this week when Stark was roughed-up by Virginia Senator George (Macaca) Allen's hired thugs. Stark initially approached Allen following a campaign appearance at a hotel in downtown Charlottesville and was subdued. Then, when he asked Allen a question about abuse allegations involving his first marriage, Stark was shoved to the ground, roughed-up, and forceably removed from the hotel grounds.



Allen, whose struggling re-election effort has resorted to accusing his rival, James Webb, a Vietnam War veteran and former Navy Secretary under Ronald Reagan, of including pornographic writing in a novel based on his time in Vietnam, merely said about the Stark incident, "Things like that happen".

Stark later recounted the incident on "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" (YouTube link). He has also filed assault charges against several Allen supporters who wrestled him to the ground.

All in all, Stark has become an expert at ambushing conservatives and holding their feet to the fire. And now, he's officially a part of the 'old media'.

On Wednesday, Cenk Uygur of Air America Radio's "The Young Turks" announced that they have hired Stark as an on-air show reporter.

"Mike is smart, tough, well educated, dedicated and obviously courageous. This country needs more reporters like Mike Stark. I am proud to be part of an organization that is going to give people like Mike an opportunity to ask more tough questions of our elected officials. The people have a right to know."

Young Turks spokeswoman Arianne Schrodel said the 38-year-old Stark would be the show's first "street reporter."

TYT bills itself as "the first nationwide liberal talk show and first live, daily Internet TV show." It airs live Monday through Friday from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. on Air America radio and via Webcast. The show, based in Los Angeles, began broadcasting in 2002 and moved to Air America in September.

Stark would not say how much he was being paid as a reporter for the show. He also said he was uncertain if he would cover the Virginia Senate campaign because of study demands at U.Va.

"This job is totally secondary to law school," said Stark. "But the main reason they're hiring me is because of the void in the media of asking difficult questions of powerful people."