Radio station pulls show over tsunami slur

http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/TV/01/26/quake.slur.reut/index.html

The entire staff of the New York radio show "Miss Jones in the Morning" was taken off the air on Wednesday after broadcasting a song that ridiculed victims of the tsunami in South Asia, the radio station said.

New York FM radio station WQHT, or HOT 97, repeatedly ran the segment last week on the show, hosted by deejay Tarsha Nicole Jones who uses the on-air name Miss Jones.

Jones and her team were suspended indefinitely, according to publicist Lizzie Grubman, who declined to say whether Jones would feature in another show at a later date.

<snip>

On Monday, the hip-hop and R&B radio station and the deejay apologized and the seven-member morning show crew agreed to donate one week's pay to relief efforts. The tsunami struck on December 26, leaving nearly 300,000 dead or missing around the Indian Ocean from Somalia to Thailand.

The incident is not the first time HOT 97 has been accused of racism and poor taste. The station made headlines when deejay Star, now at another radio station, called Jennifer Lopez a "rice-and-bean eater" and satirized the plane crash that killed R&B singer Aaliyah in 2001.

Arrested (then later released) on 26 counts of DUI....

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/mugshots/grubmanmug1.html

Nice outfit they got there.

and pick yourself up and start where you left off.

Stepford Laura

The rival station in NYC is WWPR (and only an "urban" station at that! UGH!)

WWPR is Clear Channel. Look it up on Clear Channel radio search. http://www.clearchannel.com/Radio/Search/Default.aspx

More analysis:

From the CNN article we learn that

Last Monday January 24 Miss Jones (I can't remember her whole name) apologized. By Wednesday she and most her crew were suspended.

Yet, still Friday January 29, a big protest was worked up with a complacent Brooklyn councilwoman Yvette Clark who told people to switch to (surprised?) the Clear Channel "Urban" Station.

http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/ny-ethot0129,0,8025.story?coll=ny-homepage-promo

Yes, what Miss Jones did is disgusting, but notice that it in keeping with a tradition that Star the former DJ at WQHT and now at WWPR started or continued himself.

At the same time there is a huge push to destroy Hip Hop or bring it more under the control of the proper corporations.

Check this out about this Essence magazine woman going on racist O'Reilly's show and talking down Hip Hop.

http://video.google.com/videopreview?q=ludacris&time=0&page=1&docid=4889507231970125093&urlcreated=1107133680&chan=Fox+News+Channel&prog=The+O%27Reilly+Factor&date=Fri+Jan+21+2005+at+5%3A00+PM+PST

The right wing is very interested in destroying non clear channel Hip Hop and R&B stations because the others will play an occasional song with a little protest in it.

Clear Channel, of course, is just interested in grabbing as much market and money as they can anyway they can. Closing off protest is just one of the ways they cater to business interests and garner support from right wing sources.

How to fight this:

1)Please reply to this string if you hear the Tsunami parody on any radio station or find a link where it is being passed around on the internet. There are people out there who are mascarading as upstanding citizens that enjoy this piece of trash and are passing it on.

I found it at http://groups-beta.google.com/group/misc.survivalism/browse_thread/thread/00fe7b13438381ea (not the audio file but a link to it and a plea to pass it on.) (No that is not a group I favor. I only went there when google groups said I had contact with that group. I can only figure that some post in my group was from a person in that groupl)

I will be watching this string for replies on other sightings

Lets expose their hypocrisy.

2)Anyone near NYC? Call WWPR some morning soon and tell them you want to talk with "Star" about the Tsunami song. Then when you get to him ask him if he thinks the Tsunami song was more tasteless than his parody about the death of Aaliyah and calling his derogatory remarks about Jennifer Lopez.

The incident is not the first time HOT 97 has been accused of racism and poor taste. The station made headlines when deejay Star, now at another radio station, called Jennifer Lopez a "rice-and-bean eater" and satirized the plane crash that killed R&B singer Aaliyah in 2001.

(Excerpted from CNN article linked in original post in this string) Okay here's a copy of that link: http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/TV/01/26/quake.slur.reut/index.html

Yes, the other station that CNN won't name where "Star" is now at is WWPR.

It could be a problem for Hot if it had to replace the morning show, since popular ex-WQHT host Star just launched there on rival WWPR (105.1 FM).

From: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/story/275416p-235860c.html

And please be careful what battles you join. You might be helping Clear Channel and right wingers achieve their objectives otherwise.

they deserve it.

I'm sorry but they were way over the line on this. 300,000 dead is no laughing matter at all.

than September 11.

But I am certain that these poor "misunderstood artists" will find lucrative jobs working for equally compassionate conservatives.

which would, in fact, be mathmatically correct.

my fingers are not as fast as my thoughts.

.... "100 times" more.

.

As the story notes, HOT 97's morning show misses no opportunity to take crass immaturity to new lows.

I'm not a dj or a republican is why, I guess.

On this tape you hear them introducing the "Tsunami Song," then Miss Jones and co-host Todd Lynn launching into an abusive tirade against Miss Info when she voices her objection to it. Miss Jones finally tells Info she's only complaining because "you feel superior, probably because you're Asian."

Then, after Miss Info has said the song is offensive to Asians, co-host Todd Lynn informs her: "I'm gonna start shooting Asians." Yes, he really says that. It's at 3:37 on the mp3.

In the meantime the NY Post has picked up on the story. And Hot 97 has posted an apology on their website, an extremely weak apology in my opinion. They aren't even willing to match that flimsy one day suspension Star and Buc got for the "rat eater" incident? Pathetic. And they still refuse to acknowledge the bigotry at all.

Over at okayplayer they started compiling a list of Hot 97's sponsors and how to contact them. I'll paste their findings here. Note that on the audio posted above, they basically tell us the Tsunami Song was "brought to us by" Sprint. I'm sure Sprint would love to know just what they've been bringing us
(EDIT: Sprint has now suspended their ads, along with Mcdonald's) :
http://www.hiphopmusic.com/archives/000760.html

http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,14173,1399961,00.html

Unbelievable

I refuse to post the hatefilled stuff, but if you are interested go to

http://www.asianmediawatch.net/missjones/index.html

This was such a disgusting disgrace it's unbelievable. I hope they never find work in radio again.

I hope they never find work in this country again. What a bunch of complete assholes.

They will all probably end up on AM Radio somewhere to skewer and "slice and dice" evil liberals.

That's the sad state of affairs in AM Radio today. If the song were sung about a couple of liberals getting killed in a "Yugo", or if they made sick fun of a Democrat who killed himself in a DC park, they'd have 20 million listeners and be on 600 stations.

Too bad they picked the wrong victim. If all they were doing was accusing half the country of being "communist, terrorist sympathizers" they'd be #1 on the morning drive.

Just makes me want to smash my radio sometimes.

Satire:
1 : a literary work holding up human vices and follies to ridicule or scorn
2 : trenchant wit, irony, or sarcasm used to expose and discredit vice or folly

Making fun of a disaster is not satire, it's cold-hearted ridicule.

This is utterly sickening -

http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,14173,1399961,00.html

What sort of imbecile thinks this is an acceptable thing to broadcast?

be hypocrites.

This sounds like as good a reason as any to me.

Hmmm

Hip hop, which, at its best, can be so vital and meaningful, has also long had an ugly fondness for misogyny. Now, add racism to the mix:

The seven-member morning team at WQHT-FM Hot 97 repeatedly played the song, which also included references to "screaming chinks" and orphaned children "sold into child slavery".

"You can hear God laughing, 'Swim you bitches swim'," was one line in the song.

Another said: "Go find your mommy/I just saw her float by/a tree went through her head/and now the children will be sold to child slavery."

http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,14173,1399961,00.html?gusrc=rss

A photograph of those who laugh at drowning "chinks":

http://www.hot97.com/airstaff/morningShow.aspx?origin=nav

and who sent it to Miss Jones.

Could Clear Channel have manufactured the entire incident?

This comes on the heels of another racially inflammatory broadcast by the self-proclaimed "haters" of the "Star and Buc Wild" morning show on Power 99 WUSL-FM Philadelphia. Radio host Star (Troi Terrain) called a customer service call center in India, threatened to "choke" the operator, and called her a "filthy rat-eater" and "bitch."

From: http://www.asianmediawatch.net/missjones/index.html

WUSL is Clear Channel too and apparently WWPR's morning show is syndicated over to there too.

Reading down on that page we see that Miss Jones had other racist incidents and probably she should go, but apparently our electred representatives don't take time to learn the facts, and I'm sure that the sponsors won't either that are being called on to drop the station won't either. In fact we need to all learn all the fact about an issue before we jump on a bandwagon.

but this was just sickening