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Anchorage shock jock suspended for broadcating anti-Palin organizers phone numbers

by dunkelberg | September 16, 2008 at 01:16 pm

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Radio host Burke suspended for a week
By JULIA O'MALLEY | jo'malley@adn.com

Published: September 15th, 2008 05:46 PM
Last Modified: September 15th, 2008 10:15 PM

Anchorage AM radio host Eddie Burke was been suspended after broadcasting the phone numbers of women involved in organizing a protest rally against Sarah Palin over the weekend, his station manager said today.

The station says broadcasting the telephone numbers broke station policy and the employee would be suspended a week without pay.

"Though I do not agree with some of the comments he made, as a licensee, we attempt to respect everyone's First Amendment rights, including Eddie Burke's, our listeners' and our nonlisteners'," McDonald's statement said. "That does not mean I condone inciting violence or harm in any way to people wanting to voice their opinions with peaceful protest."

Last week Burke, host of a conservative daily talk show, called rally organizers Charla Sterne and Ilona Bessenyey "socialist, baby-killing maggots," read their phone numbers on the air and encouraged listeners to call them. The women said their voice-mail quickly filled with angry, profane messages, some of them threatening.

Burke later apologized for calling them maggots and said he didn't realize he was giving out personal cell-phone numbers.

The anti-Palin turnout outnumbered the pro-Palin turnout.

The "Alaska Women Reject Palin" rally drew as many as 1,500 people to the lawn of the Loussac Library on Saturday, organizers said. That number included Eddie Burke and a group of pro-Palin demonstrators who numbered an estimated 100.

The women who drew the insults said the controversy and coverage helped increase rally attendance.

"There's no question there were people that were galvanized by how insulting he was," Bessenyey said.

She called his suspension "pretty minimal." She didn't think discipline was meant to make Burke change his ways.

"This is what he does for a living, is calling us names on the air, belittling us," she said.

Sterne said she was glad that the station did something. Burke's on-air actions provoked an outpouring of support from across party lines, she said.

"Ultimately I think he'll probably be back on the air and he'll be continuing his hateful behavior," she said.

This is the second time this year a station has suspended a radio personality for on-air comments. KBFX 100.5-FM hosts Greg Wood and Chris Wilcox, known as Woody and Wilcox, were suspended for two weeks in April after an on-air gaffe about Alaska Native women.