In one way, it’s strange that the battle against “Savage
Nation” is being spearheaded in Santa Cruz. During its prime afternoon
commute time slot, the nearest station broadcasting the show is in San Jose and
projects too weak a signal to be heard by most residents this side of the Santa
Cruz Mountains. (Although the show is re-broadcast weekdays 7 to 10 p.m. on
Santa Cruz’s AM 1080 KSCO).
But from atop Highway 17, Michael Savage’s growling voice comes in
loud and clear during the evening rush hour. And a commuting Santa Cruzan like
Thomas Leavitt would have no trouble picking up at least part of the show
during his homeward drive.
A few months ago, Leavitt was doing just that: commuting to his
soon-to-be-bust dot-com job, listening to Michael Savage on the car radio,
taking an “unholy fascination” in what he heard.
Savage, a talk show iconoclast based at KSFO in San Francisco, has
declared, “the greatest danger to the American public today is the
ACLU.” He endorsed nuking Iraq. He called gay-rights activists Nazis,
using terms like “pink swastikas” and “brownshirts of the modern
age.”
Worse, the shock jock is popular, Leavitt found. Savage’s show,
“Savage Nation,” is syndicated on more than 350 radio stations across
the country. He rules the airwaves from 4 to 7 p.m., claiming the highest
rating for that timeslot in the Bay Area. Overall, “Savage Nation”
ranks among the top talk shows in the nation, in the same league with radio
giants Rush Limbaugh, Dr. Laura and Howard Stern, according to the trade
publication Talkers Magazine.
It was all too much for Leavitt, a self-described activist, entrepreneur,
bisexual and Gnostic Christian. His buttons properly pushed, the computer geek
in Leavitt began plotting a way to counter the “hatred and lunatic
right-wing rants” of “Savage Nation.”
So two months ago, he teamed up with his wife Gunilla, a local Web designer
with dozens of sites under her belt. The result: SavageStupidity.com.
“I can’t buy a radio station,” says Leavitt, 30, who was
recently let go from his job as a systems administrator. “I can’t
even get on the air and broadcast.”
But his Web site seems to be working as an alternative, if the hate mail it
generates is any indication. The site, decked out in patriotic red, white and
blue, gleefully posts letters from Savage fans calling Leavitt everything from
“anti-American” to a “Moslem terrorist.”
“Isn’t it interesting how the right- wing needs to conflate their
opposition with whatever enemy happens to be popular at the moment?”
Leavitt responds.
Through his site, Leavitt is organizing a petition-signing and boycott
against “Savage Nation”—a campaign that has apparently prompted
a response from Savage himself. According to the site, Savage warned in his
June 13 broadcast that “if [the activists organizing against me] should
succeed in driving me away from radio,” the DJ would “release their
names and addresses.”
“If you harm me,” he allegedly warned, “I pray that no harm
comes to you, but I can’t guarantee that it won’t.”
To Leavitt, the response only means that his site is making a dent.
Boycotts aside, the ultimate solution to Savage, Leavitt says, is
reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine, a onetime FCC policy forcing radio
stations to follow political broadcasts with an opposing point of view. Back in
the ’70s and ’80s, when the policy was in effect, “there was
more fairness on the airwaves,” Leavitt believes.
The policy was discontinued during the Reagan Administration, however. Now,
Leavitt says, there’s “nothing but right-wing radio.”
The Fairness Doctrine could correct this imbalance, he says. After
“four hours of right-wing nutcase radio, then they have to carry an hour
of liberal talk shows, something like that.” The doctrine would work both
ways: Pacifica, for example, “would have to balance its own programming as
well to some degree. I think the net effect would be positive for
everyone.”
Until that day, Leavitt vows to carry on his campaign to discredit Michael
Savage, no matter what the cost. “I’m certain that to an extent
he’s deliberately provocative and hyperbolic, but at the same time his
message is so consistent, he’s got to be taken seriously,” Leavitt
says. His fans, he adds, “worship the ground he walks on.”
“I’m going to keep on and campaign against him as long as
he’s on the air, there’s no doubt about that.”
