Date: Thu, 16 Feb 1995 21:12:19 -0500 From: Chris Hagin To: Multiple recipients of list GLB-NEWS Subject: Anti-Gay Talk Show Host FIRED Date: Thu, 16 Feb 1995 KSFO Talk Show Host J. Paul Emerson Fired SAN FRANCISCO -- A radio station has fired a controversial talk show host just weeks after he touched off protests and advertising boycotts by calling for a quarantine on people with AIDS and deriding homosexuals as ``sick'' and ``pathetic.'' Management at KSFO-AM informed morning drive-time host J. Paul Emerson on Wednesday that he would not return to the air, said Julie Hoover of ABC-Capital Cities, which owns the station. He was six weeks into a 26-week contract that will be paid in full, she said. ``It hasn't worked out and he is not returning,'' she said Thursday. Emerson was hired in January as part of the station's switch to an all conservative talk format called Hot Talk, an unexpected move in notoriously liberal San Francisco. The change was an effort to boost the consistently low ratings KSFO had with its previous lineup of mostly progressive, female and minority talk show hosts. Instead, it won the station reams of negative publicity. Most of the outcry has been the result of Emerson's comments, including statements that people with AIDS should be quarantined and that homosexuals are ``sick'' and ``pathetic.'' He threatened the city's Board of Supervisors with ``war'' and called Sen. Dianne Feinstein ``Senator Slimestein.'' The station's decision pleased representatives of the gay community, who had organized an advertising boycott in response to Emerson's remarks. ``It's about time,'' said Edward Zold of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. ``I would hope that Capital Cities would be interested in rebuilding their relationship with our community, which is so badly damaged.'' Last fall, Emerson was fired by radio station KFRC after he used the term ``stinking Japanese'' during an on-air exchange with a listener about the dropping of the atomic bomb during World War II. His firing Wednesday at KSFO followed a decision by management at KGO television, Channel 7, not to air a Phil Donahue show on shock radio on which Emerson appeared with several other talk show hosts. The show, taped several days earlier, contained inflammatory statements about quarantining AIDS victims that went unchallenged, KGO General Manager Jim Topping said. ``We didn't think that was appropriate for airing in this market, so it was a fairly easy decision,'' he told The Oakland Tribune. ``We're here to provide adequate sensitivity and balance for our market.'' Emerson was replaced by Tom Kamb, whose show had followed Emerson's time slot. The remainder of KSFO's conservative hosts will remain on the air, Hoover said. Fellow KSFO hosts had mixed reactions to the news. Art Bell, the overnight host and one of the more moderate voices in the lineup, said he sympathized with KSFO's decision because Emerson's positions were bad for business. ``AIDS in San Francisco -- it's the wrong place to be making statements like that,'' he said. ``You only have free speech as long as the people paying the rent and the heat bill see fit to give you that pulpit. He can walk out on the sidewalk and say let's quarantine people. Whether or not he's got a job is arguable.'' Host Michael Savage, an afternoon personality who calls himself the ``compassionate conservative,'' said Emerson's firing ``is a black day for American journalism.'' ``I think it's censorship to give into any terrorist group, which I think GLAAD is. They don't believe in free speech.'' S. CHRISTOPHER HAGIN | The Pledge of Allegance says: Atlanta 1996 | "With liberty and justice for ALL" chagin@mindspring.com | What part of ALL do you not understand? HATE IS NOT A FAMILY VALUE