Hate-talk host hired by MSNBC

The latest hire by the cable news network MSNBC – co-owned by General Electric/NBC and Microsoft – is Michael Savage, a radio talkshow host noted for his unabashed bigotry. Savage is scheduled to have his own weekly one-hour show on MSNBC beginning in March.

Misogyny, homophobia and racism are staples of Savage’s radio show. Savage routinely refers to non-white countries as “turd world nations” and charges that the U.S. “is being taken over by the freaks, the cripples, the perverts and the mental defectives” (San Francisco Bay Guardian, 9/20/00). In a recent broadcast he justified ethnic slurs as a national security tool: “We need racist stereotypes right now of our enemy in order to encourage our warriors to kill the enemy,” he explained (San Francisco Chronicle, 2/6/03).

In announcing the hire, MSNBC President Erik Sorenson described Savage as “brash, passionate and smart,” and promised that he would provide “compelling opinion and analysis with an edge.”

If you’d like to express your opinion on Michael Savage hosting a show on MSNBC, you can write to the cable channel directly.

MSNBC Feedback: feedback@msnbc.com

Erik Sorenson, MSNBC President: Erik.Sorenson@MSNBC.com

As always, please remember that your comments are taken more seriously if you maintain a polite tone. Please send a copy to: fair@fair.org.

This is excerpted from Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting’s (www.fair.org) Feb. 12 action alert.