TalkSport Get £20,000 Reminder Why Not To Employ Really Crass, Offensive People

TalkSport has been fined £20,000 today, thanks to rightwing nut-job James Whale (pictured in attire not befitting his age, left) telling everyone to go and vote for Boris Johnson on his show earlier this year. 

The station fired Whale soon after the comments, but not soon enough for Ofcom – “TalkSport could and should have taken more action to ensure more robust compliance both before and on the date of [Whale's] broadcast”. TalkSport rather preposterously claimed they didn’t want the firing of Whale to affect the election outcome, rather than affecting their ratings from the crucial indignant-white-van market. 

Maybe the 20k is just what TalkSport needs to get it to stop hiring such slurry-mouthed goons. Whale’s place in the hall of infame is guaranteed after his Ken-bashing episode as well as his love of David “Beware the reptilian overlords” Icke, and he was joined this month by Sun columnist and fellow reactionary Middle-Englander Jon Gaunt. He called councillor Michael Stark a “health and safety Nazi”, after Stark had proposed that smokers shouldn’t foster children. Yeah, that ought to do it.

Also fondly remembered at TalkSport Towers is Tommy Boyd, former children’s TV presenter who was sacked after he let a caller rant on about how the royal family should be shot. Then there’s James H. Reeve, who TalkSport picked up after he’d got fired from Greater Manchester Radio for ”gratuitous use of racist language on and off-air”, thus pretty clearly outlining TalkSport’s hiring policies. And don’t forget Rod Lucas, who was fired after his name appeared on that leaked BNP members list, though he claimed he was only joined to help with research on his show. 

But perhaps the finest example is Mike Mendoza, who was suspended for a week in circumstances that would see you fired, from a cannon, in other lines of work. On the search for Madeline McCann, he mooted that :”Paedophiles in general are the type of people that surely would not follow football… not many gay people to the best of my knowledge are great football fans”. Gays and paedos – it’s easy to get them mixed up, isn’t it?

Luckily for those missing this delightful strain of broadcasting, Mendoza and Whale are together at last on Play Radio UK, Wednesday and Thursday evenings! Perhaps you could play a drinking game where you have to down a shot every time someone says “coloured”, “nancy”, “wind farm”, or “global government conspiracy”. Hope you’ve got a bucket handy!

Posted by Ben Beaumont-Thomas in Creative Economy | December 8, 2008 4:36PM |