From the WP, why we need to keep the pressure up: A Conumdrum for Conservative Radio Talk [View all]

[Julian Englis]

A good exploration of how their inflammatory attacks and tactic have finally begun to hurt conservative hate radio.

Dan Sileo just got a taste of what might be called the Rush Limbaugh Effect. On his sports-talk radio program in Tampa last week, Sileo enthusiastically endorsed the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ interest in a trio of free-agent players. Maybe a bit too enthusiastically.

“If they got those three monkeys, I’m good,” Sileo said about the players, all of whom are African American. “I’m ready, man . . . I want those guys. Those guys are great players.”

That was Monday. By Tuesday, Sileo was gone, fired by WDAE-AM (“The Sports Animal”), where he’d worked behind the microphone for nearly 15 years. The station, owned by radio giant Clear Channel Communications, has declined to talk about Sileo’s dismissal.

Nevertheless, in the wake of the furor over Limbaugh’s denunciation of Georgetown law-school student Sandra Fluke last month, Sileo’s firing suggests to many that something has changed about the sensitivities of talk-radio stations. A medium built on pushing the limits of acceptable speech appears, once again, to be reassessing just where those limits are.

More at:
www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/a-conundrum-for-conservative-talk-radio/2012/03/15/gIQAVbAQLS_story.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/a-conundrum-for-conservative-talk-radio/2012/03/15/gIQAVbAQLS_story.html