Media Notes - Howard Kurtz
The Howard Factor
Monday, Mar 15, 2004; 8:21 AM
Could President Bush pay a price for the FCC crackdown on airwaves indecency?
He's made a powerful enemy, it seems, in Howard Stern.
Scoff if you must, but the guy has millions of listeners, and he's furious at Bush.
Stern has had a minor political impact before. He helped Christie Whitman get elected in New Jersey in '93 (in return for a promise to name a rest stop after him) and George Pataki in '94. Al D'Amato and Donald Trump were frequent guests. He's been doing the same sex-and-celebrities shtick for 20 years, only recently incurring the wrath of the let's-clean-up-the-airwaves-after-Janet Jackson crowd.
Stern's impact could be limited, of course, if he carries out his threat to quit if Congress passes the new indecency law with mega-fines. Or if he gets booted from the air, though he's made a bundle for Viacom.
But if he stays near a microphone and continues to trash the administration, Howard Power could take on a new meaning.
Salon's Eric Boehlert has the goods:
"Declaring a 'radio jihad' against President Bush, syndicated morning man Howard Stern and his burgeoning crusade to drive Republicans from the White House are shaping up as a colossal media headache for the GOP, and one they never saw coming.
"The pioneering shock jock, 'the man who launched the raunch,' as the Los Angeles Times once put it, has emerged almost overnight as the most influential Bush critic in all of American broadcasting, as he rails against the president hour after hour, day after day to a weekly audience of 8 million listeners. Never before has a Republican president come under such withering attack from a radio talk-show host with the influence and national reach Stern has . . .
"Stern had strongly backed Bush's war on Iraq, but in the past two weeks, he has derided the president as a 'Jesus freak,' a 'maniac' and 'an arrogant bastard,' while ranting against 'the Christian right minority that has taken over the White House.' Specifically, Stern has assailed Bush's use of 9/11 images in his campaign ads, questioned his National Guard service, condemned his decision to curb stem cell research and labeled him an enemy of civil liberties, abortion rights and gay rights.
"In other words, it's the kind of free campaign rhetoric the Democratic National Committee couldn't have imagined just one month ago.
"'Our research shows many, many people in the 30- to 40-year-old range who were Bush supporters are rethinking that position and turning away from Bush because of what Howard Stern has been saying,' says Michael Harrison, publisher of Talkers magazine...
"Anecdotally, those daily phone calls from listeners -- mostly men -- who tell Stern they usually don't vote, but this year they're definitely going to vote against Bush (and it's usually against, Bush not for Sen. John Kerry) cannot be comforting to the Bush/Cheney '04 strategists." |
