Mike Boda
September 22 2009
Pittsburgh Grassroots Examiner
G-20: Shock-jock yells "fire' in crowded tunnel
After weeks of the tossing of human waste referred to as the "local TV news," it is easy to become desensitized to the kind of low-budget, Hollywood, action-movie nonsense that they have been irresponsibly pushing onto an impressionable audience that these self-described "news outlets" have been known to convince several times a year that snow flurries will result in the total collapse of civilization. Following "liberal" media outlets WTAE's straight-faced blaming the City's neglect of their properties and KDKA's reliance on anonymous sources, delivered by a failing radio pundit who gets a chance to play at reporter because he is married to a news anchor, would seem to be a tough act, but local extreme-right, shock jocks have accepted the challenge.
If you got the day off, due to a rumor being spread this morning that "'G-20 protesters' intend to drive into the region's tunnels, stop a car, slash the tires, and burn it," then you were the victim of an irresponsible, dangerous hoax perpetrated by Ouinn, one half of local wing-nut radio comedians, Quinn and Rose (but enjoy your day off). This right-wing kook also maintains that "'G-20 protesters' will be throwing tear gas cannisters into retail stores," overlooking who actually possesses stockpiles of these kinds of chemical weapons and it is not the people operating community farms, mobile kitchens or writer's centers.
While these private-plane populists have both made the admirable decision to refrain from serving in the US military, the "war room" does seem like a strange name for the website of a couple of show-business types. Why so many entertainers are concerned that Barack Obama and the global elite have a good time, remains a mystery? If you visit their website and are unable to tell them apart, Jim Quinn is the one who resembles Gollum from the Lord of the Rings, dressed as one of the Golden Girls and Rose Soma-Tennent is the one swaddled in kitschy animal-prints who resembles an attempt at making a mummy (or jerky) with a tanning bed.
There is probably not anything that can be done about him, being a Clear Channel employee, but these kinds of dangerous rumors can get people hurt, especially given the local fear of tunnels.
Email the station manager to see if he feels that yelling "fire" in a crowded rush-hour tunnel is the kind of infotainment he wants to be associated with.
http://www.examiner.com/x-10661-Pittsburgh-Grassroots-Examiner~y2009m9d22-G20-Shockjocks-yell-fire-in-a-crowded-tunnel
Local Groups Organizing Around the G-20
Amnesty International- Carnegie Mellon University
Anti-War Comittee (AWC)
Black Political Political Empowerment Project (B-PEP)
Code Pink: Pittsburgh Women For Peace
Fed Up! Human Rights Coalition-Pittsburgh
G-6 Billion
G-20 Media Support
Greater Pittsburgh Anarchist Collective (GPAC)
Green Party of Allegheny County
Health Care 4 All-PA
Network of Spiritual Progressives-Pittsburgh
One HOOD
Pittsburgh G-20 Resistance Project
Pittsburgh Organzing Group
Pittsburgh Palestine Solidarity Committee
Raging Grannies
Students for Justice in Palestine
Thomas Merton Center
Three Rivers Climate Convergence: United for Environmental Justice
Veterans for Peace
Women's International League for Peace & Freedom
