One Slip o' the Tongue...

Yes, it's been too long between writings - just haven't had too much to write about lately.

Until today.

A big ol' stink has arisen in the St. Louis area re: an unfortunate 'radio personality' on a local talk radio station. The poor man was doing his show yesterday and in the midst of praising our Secretary of State, meant to say a certain word, but instead said another word that sounds very similar to it (click on the link - I shall not repeat the word). The word he said is commonly used as racial slur. Did he misspeak? Did he really mean to say it? Is he a filthy stinkin' racist? A huge debate has stirred up as a result of predictable coverage in local print and electronic media.

Regardless, the man did himself no favors by immediately acknowledging his mistake, apologizing all over himself in the process. He hastily segued to a commercial break and to make a long story short, he was fired almost immediately and the radio station manager apologized on-air in short order. Today we learn that he has been suspended from his teaching job at a local chiropractic college.

This is one of those situations where nothing good can result of its outcome. My questions are:

1) He had a 'delay' (OH #$%#@!!) button he could have used to prevent his words from ever seeing airtime. Why didn't he use it? Many a radio announcer has been saved via that route. It could be that he panicked, radio not being his first occupation. He had been on the job only 2 weeks, after coming over from a local low-watt talk station.

2) Did he really misspeak, as he claims? How do you make the mistake he made? Only he knows what his true feelings are. If he truly is a racist, then he deserves to be condemned as such. But then again, why would purposely say such a thing knowing he was deep-sixing himself?

I feel bad for him, as his radio career, and likely his teaching career are being destroyed over one little bit of malfeasance. Now, I don't condone any racist speech and am not personally a racist. The God I serve is not, so neither am I. The radio station's hands were unfortunately tied, as they are now mostly owned by the St. Louis Cardinals baseball club. They can't be associated with anything remotely racist so the radio host had to go. Local radio industry insiders are reacting with a mixture of disgust and amusement at the radio station manager, as he is not held in high regard for his management style. (Side note: The radio station in question dumped most of its personalities and hired new "edgier" hosts when the Cardinals ownership took over in January.)

My concern is the disturbing amount of media coverage this incident is receiving. The sad fact is that nowadays, our culture loves controversy. You make one mistake in public, and it's worldwide within seconds. "Put it out there and let it blow up" seems to be the rule. As of this writing, the story is the headline on Stltoday.com and it's even made it to Drudge.com .

Tom Calhoun is a veteran local radio man and offers a reasoned commentary in his blog.

What do my faithful readers have to say?