I’ve never listened to Dr. Laura Schlessinger on the radio, but I’ve read that she’s quitting radio because, by her account, her “First Amendment rights have been usurped” because she used the “n-word” on the air. (I know who she is, and know of her manner; I’m not, however, a listener.)
Schlessinger’s claim in nonsense, as Paul Riismandel writes in Dr. Laura lived by the market, died by the market:
Lest anyone be confused, the current state of US law and policy makes it perfectly legal for Dr. Laura to use the ?n-word? and most other words in the English language on the radio. The only exceptions to this are in cases of indecency, which only pertains to discussing matters of sexual and excretory functions; racial, gender and other types of epithets are not policed by the FCC in any fashion.
Rather, what happened to Dr. Laura is that she felt the harsh sting of the marketplace at work. Rather than attempting to bring any sort of governmental action the coalition led by Media Matters took aim squarely at Dr. Laura?s advertisers and called them on the carpet for supporting her program and the speech it contains. As it turns out, it looks like big companies like General Motor?s OnStar and Motel 6 decided they?d rather not be associated with a program that tosses around the ?n-word? and pulled their advertising.
It’s not a violation of the First Amendment for private advertisers to decide against running commercials on her program. Quite the contrary, that decision is a free choice of those private parties, and an exercise of their economic liberty.
If these advertisers decide she’s objectionable, and association with her damages their brands, they’re well within their rights — and not violating hers — to walk away from her program.
She’s still free to use any number of insulting terms; she’s just not entitled to expect private parties to pay her in advertising when she does so. She’s equally free to try to find advertisers from among companies that don’t mind racial insults, but she’ll find that’s a small and shoddy market.
She’s simply wrong about the First Amendment, and an irritating whiner, to boot. It’s well-past time she picked herself up, and accepted responsibility for her own conduct.