Don't Make McBride a Martyr

by folkbum

As I wrote last night, Dennis Miller on the radio instead of Jessica McBride isn't necessarily a "win." The temptation will be both to celebrate her disappearance from radio and to take credit for it. This is not wise.

As I went back through our various postings from this week, starting with Jim Rowen who broke the story on through to the fine folks at Whallah, almost no one called for her to be fired--merely for her to apologize. (Jason did, though he was the only one I found.) Mostly, we were looking for some recognition that she crossed a line--an apology. I haven't heard that the apology has happened yet, so for anyone to insinuate that we got what we wanted--as Patrick and others do here--is wrong. We didn't get that at all.

Additionally, as much as McBride's opinions may not have added one iota of diversity to the airwaves in Milwaukee, she was, at least, a woman on talk radio. Patrick, in the link just above, speculates that WTMJ "used this non-story as cover for firing a woman." Dennis Miller adds nothing to WTMJ-AM to make it look or sound any more like what Milwaukee looks and sounds like, and McBride's firing leaves WTMJ with a grand total of two weekly hours of local programming hosted by women, neither hour remotely political. (They do run Laura Ingraham's crappy show in the middle of the night.) That Miller would be the replacement does not speak well of whatever intentions WTMJ might have to make their programming more diverse in any way--not just ideologically.

Mostly, though, I want to be careful that we don't make McBride a martyr. Some on the right are already trying, even going to so far as to call those of us who asked for an apology "little fascists." (Of course, that seems perfectly in character for that blogger.) McBride will undoubtedly find something else to do. I'd just rather she do it as "McBride, mediocre radio host," and not "McBride, conservative martyr." No point in feeding that beast.