http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25788692/

Savage has been over the edge on many issues and he once again proves so...children need our love no matter what...calling any child a brat...well maybe he was when he was young.

Once again, the Devil, aka Michael Savage, speaks his wickedly ways. The man's a blow hard, and he gets paid to make irresponsible conversation. He's got his disciples, but thank God the VAST majority of people see him for what he is, the Devil with a microphone.

People looking for medical advice on the radio should listen to Dr. Dean Edell, not "Dr. Savage." Although Edell's formal training is in eye surgery, he routinely researches medical journals to stay up to date. To the best of my knowledge, "Dr. Savage" does not do any medical research. Savage's comments often are concerns or fears that some people may have, presented with enough hyperbole to make them sound good on the radio.

Dr. Dean has expressed the concern that possibly, ADHD and some mild forms of autism are being diagnosed more today than they were a generation ago, and as a result, more children are being medicated. Edell claims that maybe a few budding geniuses who are acting out of boredom with mass-appeal pace of their schooling end up being stifled with medications.

Savage, on the other hand, just makes a sweeping statement that all children who misbehave are doing so because of bad parenting. This is a very different claim.

Savage is an idiot with a microphone. Those that listen to him are idiots as well.

I listen to Michael Savage.

Have any of you actually spent any time with him on a personal level? How do you know that he is not just doing an incredibly good job at creating controversy? It is after all his job to get ratings and to be inflamatory sure seems to do that these days. If an actor does a job job with a movie he gets an Oscar, when a talk show host does a good job at stirring people up he gets ridiculed. Don't get me wrong I don't listen to him at all or support anything from him but "What If"? What if it's just a job and he is good at it?

Think About That.

If that were true, then he is a liar and should not ever be trusted to speak anything truthful.

I heard him for the first time a couple weeks ago.

I'm a fairly quick study; He's a dick. Or, at least, he ACTS like a dick.

Alfredo, you seem like a decent guy, but if you listen to Savage, you're wasting your time and put yourself at risk of being called an idiot. There's no redeeming value with what he does on the radio.

Alfredo I have listened to more than a couple of Savage's shows in the past and talk about creating a level of stress that made me want to reach for a gun (that is if there were one around) and simultanously pull my hair out. My blood pressure had to have skyrocket in less than 2 minutes in everytime I listened to him.

For the longest time I boycotted Rockstar Energy drinks because he was one of the financial backers of the company.

Darktemper indeed does bring up a good point. Is Savage just playing the part of the heel?

I think the best description of Savage was given on the air by Savage himself. He said that the way that he presents himself is like an annoying, loudmouthed relative who always has something provocative to say at family get-togethers.

I see Savage as a character. He is flamboyant. The stuff that he says can't be taken at face value. He is not an authority on any of the fields that he talks about on the air.

It's scary to think someone could compartmentalize himself so well – a psychopath with a microphone while on the air but in reality a pussycat with a sweet disposition off the air. In fact, he doesn't think autistic children are brats after all, but in reality opens his sprawling Bay Area home to autistic children and their families for parties and sleep over’s. Plus he raises tons of money for autistic charities. F*ck that, the man’s a turd with a phat paycheck, period. If the best he can do is make light of kids with autism, he needs to be called out for it.

For a long time, I have believed that most stuff broadcast on the radio is fake. I thought this over and over again when I was working in Christian radio, although I certainly didn't dare say this to anybody in the studio. The arrest and conviction of Pastor Sergio Alvarizares was a big-time affirmation of this suspicion.

Having known some Autistic people,I must say,he's completely ignorant on this issue (and probably many others.)
Somebody send him some brain-seeds,he needs to grow one.

Pro Wrestling & Radio who woulda thunk that they are related. Lets see: stage names, storylines, drug abuse, disparity in wages from top to bottom, radio schools vs wrestling schools (which students are getting hosed more?)

For a long time, I have believed that most stuff broadcast on the radio is fake.
I once heard that everything that happens on the air is "show business."
Interpret that as you will.

Although I have no interest in naming names, I once heard of a well-known personality that had a off-air coworker who thought everything that was said on-air about their personal life was real. The personality told them that it was made up. Judging from the rest of the story, the off-air coworker found another industry to work in.

Say it ain't so Newflyer! I thought it was all real. Oh well I guess I am just a mark.

update from R&R and Mike Stern

On a recent edition of Talk Radio Network's syndicated "The Michael Savage Show,” host Michael Savage talked about children who have been misdiagnosed with autism, not, as some thought, children who actually suffer from the problem. His remarks, which had been criticized by children's advocacy groups, were supposed to be directed at corrupt doctors and pharmaceutical companies: "To permit greedy doctors to include children in medical categories which may not be appropriate is a crime against that child and their family. Let the truly autistic be treated. Let the falsely diagnosed be free," Savage says clarifying his intent.

Hopefully, the attention his remarks are receiving will "boldly awaken parents and children to the medical community's attempt to label too many children or adults as 'autistic,’" says Savage. "Just as some drug companies have over-diagnosed 'ADD' and 'ADHD' to peddle dangerous speed-like drugs to children as young as four years of age, this cartel of doctors and drug companies is now creating a national panic by over-diagnosing 'autism,' for which there is no definitive medical diagnosis!"

Savage believes many children are being "victimized" when they are diagnosed with an "illness" which may not exist, in all cases. He points to a similar situation where doctors prescribed anti-cholesterol drugs for children as young as two years of age, saying, "Without any scientific studies on the possible dangers of such drugs on children, corrupt doctors made this controversial, unscientific recommendation."
Situations like that have Savage concerned that children have become "profit centers" for a greedy, corrupt medical/pharmaceutical establishment.

Savage's remarks led to concern from parental advocacy groups and talk of a protest at his New York City affiliate, Buckley talk WOR. He reportedly called children with autism "brats" as well as "idiots" and "morons."

Spin control because of the falling out. Still, what remains after the smoke clears is:

Talk radio is show business, except it does often cater to some of the less than savory traits that live within the human psyche.

If you are going to take on mental retardation as a topic, you better do your homework. Savage is not someone who impresses me as being a learned fellow with opinions, rather a show biz buffoon trying to cash in on (see first paragraph).

Sorry Alfredo, but your time is better spent listening to something you might learn facts from, not bullshit and spin.

"Savage is not someone who impresses me as being a learned fellow with opinions"

I think that you could argue that Michael (Weiner) Savage has some first hand experience with mental illness.

This is tame stuff compared to the time in 2001 when he used the term "fresh white nookie" to refer to a group of schoolgirls who give sandwiches to the homeless, and then went on to say the girls would enjoy being raped in a Dumpster. (After school officials protested, the local station management apologized but as far as I know, Savage never did.)

(Weiner/Savage) holds master's degrees in medical botany and medical anthropology and earned a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, in nutritional ethnomedicine.

Interesting.

The reason that I put "Dr. Savage" in quotes is that the name on his Ph. D. is Dr. Michael Weiner. As others have suggested, the real Dr. Weiner is probably a very different creature than the "Dr. Savage" heard on the air. It is all theater of the mind.

So, he is very highly likely to know exactly how to get high, what works best when, who has gotten hammered successfully and why, and how to do it safely today.

Sweet!

One thing's for sure... this entire ordeal is great free advertising for his program. Ever notice that with all the controversy of all the different events over the last 10+(?) years, his show is still on the air?

Imus says "nappy headed hos" and gets canned.

Savage delivers an entire rant of bigotry against the handicapped with little or no consequences.

Perhaps we should pay attention to who advertises on the Savage show.

Put that way, it's looking pretty bad.

Maybe mail them some audio clips and quotes, along with a commitment to not do business with them.

That worked pretty well with KSFO. Maybe it would work with Savage.

Virtually everything has been a target of a Savage rant at one time or another. Once, he called Jerry Greenfield (Of Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream) a "fat slob" who "only cares about global warming because it will make the cost of refrigerating his ice cream go up." Another time, he went on a tirade against Roberto Benigni (director of the film _Life_is_Beautiful_) because Benigni supported a general strike in Italy. In an even wackier tirade, he went off on Michael Newdow, the California man who challenged the use of the current version of the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools, with an emphasis that Newdow's appearing barefoot in a television interview showed his disrespect to the entire country!

I would consider it a mark of achievement if I became famous enough one day for Savage to attack me on the air. Maybe, he could start by asking, "is this guy even in the country legally?"

Quote: MARK JAYCOX, WHK Station Manager: "This guy's a knucklehead, and I want to get rid of him."

All Access Report: WHK Drops Savage

SALEM Talk WHK-A/CLEVELAND is dropping TALK RADIO NETWORK's MICHAEL SAVAGE in the wake of the controversy over SAVAGE's comments about autism, according to the CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER. The paper's JULIE E. WASHINGTON reports that the station has a contract to carry SAVAGE through 2010 but that station manager MARK JAYCOX told her "This guy's a knucklehead, and I want to get rid of him."

The station plans to fill SAVAGE's 9p-midnight slot with syndicated host MARK LEVIN and a local show with TOM KELLY (presently heard on weekends).

Michael Savage said he has been taken out of context. He says the definition of autism has been expanded to broadly. Throwing a tantrum is now an example of autism.

Here is a quote from Savage: "The real cases of autism deserve our sympathy and our financial support."

http://www.savageonautism.com/

Yeah, because he put himself there!

If he really was sympathetic to the cause of autism, he would have not used the more expansive and diminutive context in the first place.

Got caught trying to get numbers.

Leave it to the holy to defend the devil. How ironic.

Friday night, Phil Hendrie did a commentary on the Michael Savage controversy that included the controversial quote. Hendrie was not trying to defend Savage's comment, but he was critical of how he believes radio management treats personalities.

The Savage quote was,

 
    In 99% of the cases, it's a brat who hasn't been told to cut the act out.  That's what 
    autism is. What do you mean they scream and they're silent?  They don't have a father  
    around to tell them, 'Don't act like a moron.  You'll get nowhere in life. Stop acting like a putz.' 

Yeah, that's politics.

Media Matters is all about making sure people are aware of Republican bias and are about fact checking commentary that is negative toward progressive ideas. There is absolutely no question as to their bias and motives.

They are completely up front about this however. There is no hiding behind "the family", or "the kids" or "the bible". They just think progressive ideas are the better ones and are working hard to point that out.

I do find it very interesting that it's a lot easier to find hosts that do this kind of thing associated with conservatives more often than not. Maybe that's just a numbers game. Lefty talk is still growing. Will be a while before we see a straight up comparison of that kind.

So, I'm open to that, leaving then the door also open for Savage just being targeted because he's Savage! That is what he is going to say.

Here's the rub.

Sure, they do employ tactics like this. We've got people phoning it in against Savage because he's seen as harmful. There are similar groups that do it to other hosts and they do it for ideological reasons.

At the end of the day, that all adds up and either a host is viable or they are not. Perhaps that's the frustration in that syndicators might not be willing to work so hard to back hosts, because all of this activity is more hassle than keeping the host is worth.

So, is that a good thing for talk?

I personally think so. The medium itself isn't going anywhere. Perhaps the race for numbers has gotten out of hand, and is just being checked like other things are being checked.

The result is likely to be more solid talk. Maybe somewhat lower numbers for a while, but eventually maybe higher ones as talk could get more reputable.

IMHO, there is plenty of controversy to be had without devaluing groups of people. There are scandals, conflicts of religion, ideology, corporate issues, injustices in law, and society in general to pick over for discussion.

Imus used "nappy ho", FOX has used "Baby Mamma", Rhodes used "Fucking Whore". All of that threw a lot of sparks, and they all got a minor league boost out of it too. However, looking at the productions in general, these comments are not the substance!

All of these have bias of some kind. It's stronger in some than others. And with that strength comes the tendency to push the edge, play on our core issues and get some attention like carnival barkers do.

Unlike the barker, there is plenty to be discussed and presented without these things.

I don't agree with very much of what Savage does, but I do think he's a great host. Has talent and can get people listening.

Really, that talent can carry his show without the cheap shots. That's true for most of talk.

Because of that, I don't have a big issue with watch dog groups doing their thing. There are enough of them, and enough diversity in bias among them, to more or less act together as a check on flash in the pan tactics.

Truth is, I think this should be a slap on the hand, "Bad Savage, you can do better", and perhaps he does. Losing a station or few is essentially that. No harm, no foul. He will still do his show, and perhaps improve on those things he does well, depending far less on this kind of crap.

I remain absolutely convinced he is quite capable of pissing me off on a regular basis without this stuff. He should just do that and we are all better off.

What I am coming out of this controversy with is:

If you are a talk radio personality, you have to be provocative if you want to succeed. You want to get people talking about you. You're a talk show host, not a DJ on KINK or KMHD.

If you want to be successful in the world of politics (i.e. effectively lobby for your views), you have to play hardball, as Media Matters is doing. If you don't then your organization isn't going to accomplish very much, other than turning into a political ideology discussion group.

Yep.

Free speech is not a shield. It also comes with some degree of responsibility, in that those of us with real conviction are going to speak to the fullest extent possible.

Why do anything else?

So, it's speak or be spoken for, and that's just how it is.

This goes for work, life, religion, love, you name it.

I also think it works as a great filter. There are many controversial statements to be made. Lots of ways to make the news and self-promote too.

Those ways that devalue others, on attributes they cannot control, are unacceptable. They should be unacceptable all around, as we all are people and all have attributes about us we cannot control.

Savage and others are always being reminded of these things. They can self-promote and make news and be controversial, and do so without devaluing people in ways they cannot rebut, or change for the better.

And that's really key. If we had somebody involved in a sex scandal, or perhaps was a member of a cult, or something where it's an active choice on their part, they could either justify that choice, or apologize for making it and then choose differently, or maybe at the least, take the heat and know it's warranted and simply part of the cost of the choice they made.

How does one apologize for being autistic? How does one choose to not be autistic? (there have only been a few that made it to full awareness and even then it's still a different thing than we experience every day)

Make no mistake. If it's a matter of choice, and this kind of thing is done by a host, I think it's completely fair game. That dynamic forces us to be accountable for our actions and beliefs. Act like a nut-bag and get called out on being a nut-bag!

I don't think anybody should be, or can be, accountable for how they just are. Maybe it's ugly, retarded, female, male, black, gay, etc...

There is no choice in those things, so there can be no accountability. No act, no accounting.

However, being bigoted, discriminatory, sexist, corporatist, racist, and other things we can choose to do or not, does come with accountability. If they didn't, we would then have little incentive to be people that are worthy to live around and work together with.

Now, there is a case for somebody being truly ignorant. That works exactly ONCE. From there on out, they have to account for their choice the same as the rest of us do. Might as well be perfectly fair about that.

He's got a right to do this stuff, in that it's not criminal. That right also does not come with a shield that empowers him to do it at no cost. He bears that, and so do the people that syndicate him. Perhaps the cost on some of that is just too high.

Offending somebody is a civil harm, not a criminal one. We do this because civil harms are harms that are as big or harmful as we think they are! To one person, a given comment might be just a tiny bit harmful. To another, it might be the end of the world kind of harmful. We've got no measuring stick to use on this stuff, so it goes to civil court, where we judge it with a lower standard than we do criminal harm, and the overall worth of the harm ends up being judged by our peers.

I think that's just about as good as it gets.

Getting back to what Hendrie was saying about syndicator management not standing up for their talent, it's worth asking if they too are not just picking their battles!

Perhaps they see that as crossing the line. As one of his peers, they see the stuff coming in and feel bad about it, or from a management perspective see the threat of litigation.

What do they tell people who make those kinds of complaints? Lump it? Some people are more easily picked on, and doing so is just ok? Bring it on, we've got enough dollars to carry us through court?

They could, but then those people might not listen right? A competitor paying attention, could see that and capture mind share and that means dollars to them. Those who are really offended might just drag them into court, where it's gonna then cost real dollars, not just lost opportunity dollars in the form of fewer ads, or a station loss or two.

On the other hand, let's say it was contraversial, but not tied to those non choice attributes! Now they could defend that and have solid ground to stand on, and do it on free speech grounds and robust public debate and discourse grounds.

Probably they would prevail in court, meaning they can handle more risk too. The statements then are more robust and solid. Worth airing right?

How else are we to decide what's worth airing?

Part of what Hendrie is getting at is the fear of things being deemed not worth it, when they really might be. IMHO, that's a totally fair point, and the watchdogs, themselves left unchecked would probably get us there.

We have courts for that too, they have accountability too, and the battle rages on!

Part of the game in talk then, is seeing all of that dynamic for what it is and having the talent and the skill and the character to walk it, get your numbers, and live to broadcast another day.

Savage stumbled, and to other broadcasters, that's a sobering warning about how important it is to focus hard on walking those complex lines, every single day. Same as a human interest story for us ordinary people! Somebody gets hit, doddling off the sidewalk.

Makes us think a bit the next time we walk on one right?

That's all that happened here.

This from All Access:

--------------------WINA/Charlottesville Drops Savage--------------------

SAGA Talk WINA-A/CHARLOTTESVILLE has dropped TALK RADIO NETWORK's MICHAEL SAVAGE in the wake of the controversy over the host's comments on autism. The station has picked up the syndicated DAVE RAMSEY show for the 8-10p ET slot on weeknights.

PD RICK DANIELS told CHARLOTTESVILLE weekly paper THE HOOK, "Quite honestly, it came down to common decency. Although he was trying to make a bigger point, he didn’t clarify it at all. We took into account our listeners and some feedback we’ve gotten, and we wanted to do what was best for our community."

Charlottesville, that's got to be a big market for him too.

I'll take Dave Ramsey over Michael Savage ANY day, ALL day!!