#Bob Grant Off the Air Following Remarks After Ron Brown's Death
Jim Kennemur
Lawrie Mifflin of the New York Times, April 18, 1996
Bob Grant, the radio talk show host who for more than 25 years
has provoked outrage with his derogatory comments about black and
Hispanic people, was abruptly taken off the air Wednesday after
facing criticism for a remark he made following the death of
Ronald H. Brown, the United States Commerce Secretary.
Through his afternoon radio show on WABC-AM, which is broadcast
throughout the New York region, Mr. Grant has become a flashpoint
in the debate over whether talk radio has gone too far. He has
referred to blacks as "savages," and has gotten prominent politicians
like Gov. Christine Todd Whitman of New Jersey into trouble for
appearing on his program.
A two-sentence statement released late Wednesday by Capital Cities/
ABC Inc., said the relationship between the company and Mr. Grant
"has been terminated by mutual agreement." But several industry
officials said there was no doubt that Mr. Grant had been dismissed.
The last straw, these officials said, was a comment Mr. Grant
made on his show on April 3 after initial news reports about the
crash from Croatia said there might be one survivor.
"My hunch is that he is the one survivor," Mr. Grant said, according
to a transcript of his program provided by Fairness and Accuracy
in Reporting, a media watchdog organization based in Manhattan.
"I just have that hunch. Maybe it's because, at heart, I'm a
pessimist."
Neither Mr. Grant's agent nor Phil Boyce, the WABC-AM program director
and Mr. Grant's chief champion at the station, returned calls
seeking comment Wednesday. Julie Hoover, a spokeswoman for Capital
Cities/ABC, said the company would have no other comment.
But Robert A. Iger, the president of Capital Cities/ABC, is known
to have been uncomfortable in the past about some of Mr. Grant's
remarks on race, and to have admonished Mr. Grant about them.
Industry executives who know Mr. Iger said he had learned of the
comments about Mr. Brown's plane crash a few days after the comments
were made, then had asked for verification of them, and then decided
to terminate Mr. Grant's program.
Former New York Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, speaking on his own WABC-AM
talk show last Saturday morning, called attention to Mr. Grant's
comment about Mr. Brown, saying, "I was disgusted by it."
Mr. Grant, 66, whose real name is Robert Gigante, and who lives
in Manalapan, N.J., has worked in radio for more than 45 years,
and has consistently expressed the view that black and Hispanic
people are genetically inferior to whites.
At various times in the past few years, Mr. Grant has used a crude
sexual epithet in referring to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and
has also described former New York Mayor David N. Dinkins as a
"washroom attendant." He also said that if the basketball star
Earvin (Magic) Johnson, who is H.I.V.-positive, developed AIDS
and deteroriated, then he would "make a contribution" to society.
He also said he hoped that President Clinton would "exchange bodily
fluids" with an H.I.V.-positive immigrant.
Although many people expressed outrage about such comments, WABC-
AM and its parent company have generally defended Mr. Grant's First
Amendment right to speak his opinions.
In March, Alan M. Dershowitz's Sunday-night talk show was canceled
by Mr. Boyce, the WABC program director, after Mr. Dershowitz
called Mr. Grant a racist, a bigot and "a despicable talk show
host" on his March 17 program. At the time, Mr. Boyce said he would
not allow one host to talk about another that way, and added that
Mr. Dershowitz's ratings were minuscule compared to Mr. Grant's.
"He's the one who shot Bob Grant in the foot," Mr. Dershowitz said
of Mr. Boyce, in a telephone interview yesterday. "Until they took
my show off the air in New York, they were able to justify Bob
Grant on free-speech grounds. And my preference would be for everybody
to be on the air, but once they began to exercise some censorship,
they couldn't pick and choose, and choose a racist over a non-racist."
Recently, and before Mr. Grant's comment about Secretary Brown,
several advocacy groups and black leaders, including the Rev. Jesse
Jackson and the group FAIR, had begun a campaign to put public
pressure on WABC and on The Walt Disney Company, which bought Capital
Cities/ABC last August, to take Mr. Grant off the air.
FAIR, based in New York, placed a quarter-page advertisement on
the Op-Ed page of The New York Times on March 31, after
Mr. Dershowitz's show was canceled, giving examples of what it
called Mr. Grant's bigotry, and asking the company to consider
whether Mr. Grant's views were "in keeping with Disney's image
as a provider of family entertainment, to families of all colors."
FAIR also has made a two-hour tape of Mr. Grant's comments through
the years. Mr. Dershowitz said he had made copies of that tape,
and was planning to send them to Disney and ABC executives.
He said he had not sent the tape to Mr. Iger or other executives
yet, but added, "The point is they knew this whole campaign was
about to begin."
In a statement Wednesday, Steve Rendell, senior analyst at the
research and advocacy group said, "While FAIR has never called
for Bob Grant's removal from the airwaves, we are heartened that
at long last, the issue of Grant's hateful rhetoric has apparently
been taken seriously."
Curtis Sliwa, the Guardian Angels leader who has also been a radio
host in New York recently, took over Mr. Grant's time slot Wednesday,
and is expected to do so on an interim basis for an undetermined
time.
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