There is an update at the end of this blog.Â
It’s about corporate responsibility. It’s about the safety and well-being of young people who are frightened, and confused about their gender identity; that society says it’s not OK to ridicule them, ostracize them, or pound their brains into the pavement.Â
Good God, people. Have you no shame? No sense of decency?Â
The Rochester radio show “The Breakfast Buzz” with Kimberly and Beck — while never an oasis of intelligent discourse — has hit bottom and then dug a basement. In the Marianas Trench. The radio hosts apparently decided that the City of Rochester’s recent decision to extend health care benefits to transgender individuals and their families could not pass without their enlightened contribution to the subject. How fortunate for the rest of us.Â
You can listen to the clip yourself, but here’s an excerpt of the dialogue, which I’m sure rivals only the Lincoln-Douglas debates in thoughtfulness, sincerity, and responsibility to a greater idea of humanity:Â
“Transgender or gender nonconforming. What the hell does that mean? Like you’re not a woman or a man??
“The dude can look like a lady and the city is going to pay for it!” (cue “Dude Looks Like a Lady” music)
“Does that mean then they’ll also, if women want a boob job, they’ll pay for a boob job because I think that’s only right.”
“The services that will be paid for under the new coverage – gender reassignment surgery, PSYCHOLOGICAL COUNSELING, because you’re probably a NUTJOB to begin with!”Â
Aren’t we tired of this? Yeah, I know, they’re shock jocks or whatever; this is their job. Well, who is paying them to do this terrible job? (98.9 The Buzz is owned by Entercom.) And why? (That last bit is rhetorical. I know why: money and ratings. Well, OK, then.) Living in a country that allows you to shoot your mouth off doesn’t free you from the consequences of what you say. And I want there to be consequences for this.Â
Who decides who is welcome in our society and who is not? These two? Lord help. Today, it’s trans people. Tomorrow, it’s heavyset blonde women and their poindexter sidekicks. Well, them’s the breaks.Â
And, of course, serial offender Bob Lonsberry had to have his say on the city’s policy, too. And it’s everything you could hope for.Â
UPDATE, Thursday, May 22, 10:10 a.m..: The Buzz announced late yesterday that Kimberly and Beck had been placed on indefinite suspension. This morning, we learned that they have been fired. Applaud if you like, but the fact remains that Kimberly and Beck had been spewing hateful speech on Rochester’s airwaves for a long time, with the apparent blessing of Buzz owner Entercom. Why? Because they were making the station money. Now that things have gotten a little too hot — with advertising dollars at stake — Entercom cut them loose. Who will hold Entercom responsible?Â
This article appears in May 21-27, 2014.
Apparently Kimberly and Beck even mocked an athlete at a local school in that segment. Write or call their advertisers and ask if they want to be associated with this kind of program.
Here is Bob Lonsberry’s homophobic rant on the subject:
http://lonsberry.com/writings.cfm?story=3718&go=4
I can’t stand these two sanctimonious knuckleheads. They pretend to be thoughtful and tolerant but are really bigots in love with their own voices. I will never even try to listen to 98.9 “The Buzz” again.
I read in another article that Kimberly said something to the effect that this is a first amendment priviledge issue…only the license holder has that priviledge, not the on air person.
But, that is not the issue here, what is at issue for both Lonsberry and Kimberly and Beck is one of the intent of the FCC in granting a license “in the public trust” which comes with some responsibilities along the way.
Lonsberry and Kimberly and Beck, sadly, are motivated by racial animosity in many of their comments. One has to only read Lonsberry’s web postings or listen to him to confirm that. Kimberly leads the mindless Beck on rants that are cruel and personal attacks.
Honestly, all three should not be on the air. They serve no part of “the public trust”, rather, the lowest form of garbage called entertainmet. And, worse, both shows garner ratings from those who love to hate along with them.
Before I even type this out, I want to applaud the author for accurately and beautifully summarizing the Breakfast Buzz as “never an oasis of intelligent discourse”.
Maybe I’m alone in this opinion, but they’ve been espousing the same abusive, bigoted, hateful comments for awhile now, whether it’s about a specific person or group of people, under the guise of some sort of self-appointed moral judge. This happens to attract some of the lesser minded individuals that can’t help but gossip about people they don’t know. Until now, they never went into a tirade that caused a backlash like this.
An indefinite suspension is good PR, but I’d really like to see them fired and ultimately forced to find work in the radio industry outside of the Rochester area. The show contributes next to nothing good. I can feel my IQ dropping any time I end up accidentally tuning into it on my morning drive. The entire show is an embarrassment to our city.
A good quote that is widely attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt, currently disputed, sums my point up well:
“Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people.”
To paraphrase, Kimberly and Beck (and a good portion of their listeners) have the mental capacity and emotional maturity of a blueberry scone. Do we really need or want such vile ilk in this city? Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for freedom of speech, but there is a line drawn on what can and cannot be said without consequences and it has been crossed.
Love the irony of this:
” ‘Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people.’
To paraphrase, Kimberly and Beck (and a good portion of their listeners) have the mental capacity and emotional maturity of a blueberry scone. Do we really need or want such vile ilk in this city? Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for freedom of speech, but there is a line drawn on what can and cannot be said without consequences and it has been crossed.”
Nothing like making an ad hominem attack, after statting that only small minds would do that!
Get over yourselves people. Freedom of speacj applies to everyone. Don’t like what you hear change the station. And I agree if some one wants to go from a he to a she and vice versa then it’s an elective surgery. They should pay for it. Not insurance, if that’s the case women should be able to get boob jobs covered too 100% agreed. Get over you politically righteous selves what has this country come too!! Good for Kimberly and Beck stating something that most Americans are thinking just too scared to say bc people are too quick to be offended! This coming from someone who doesn’t even listen to the show. Just read the excerpt that everyone is in arms about.
If only the ‘shock jocks’ and comedians would stick to mocking safe targets like Christians, Catholics, Mormons, conservatives, etc they wouldn’t lose their jobs.
People like Sarah BumBarger (above) have confused freedom of speech with freedom from consequences. Yeah, you can say whatever you like–but people can respond however they like. If you’re a racist, transphobic jerk–you have the right to be. And I have the right to call your boss and ask that they not give you a platform for hate speech.
Yes, Kimberly and Beck have every right to express their opinions, no matter how vile and insensitive. They do NOT have a right to a radio show. I listened to a 12-minute clip of their tirade online, and rarely have I heard something so nasty, especially in this day and age. It reflects very poorly on their radio station.
K & B are laboring under the misconception that the First Amendment gives you the right to say anything you want whenever you want. It doesn’t. There are laws against slander and libel and they have deep roots in American jurisprudence (remember John Peter Zenger?). More importantly, it doesn’t give you a right to be free of criticism or consequences.
Although I feel upset about their comments, my stronger emotion is happiness because Kimberly and Beck have finally been taken off the air! They’ve been the absolute worst people on Rochester radio for years and it’s been a long time coming. A great thing came out of this bad situation. Also I’m glad K&B decided to exercise their Freedom of Speech and Entercom decided to exercise their freedom to terminate scumbag employees. Flex those rights people!
Sarah Bumbarger, I think you fundamentally misunderstand the concept of free speech. The right to free speech means that a person can say whatever he or she wishes without the government swooping in and throwing the individual in jail for it. Kimberly and Beck did not violate any laws, hence, they are not in jail. They merely made offensive statements on a radio station where they were employed. The owners of the radio station had just as much of a right to their employment as they had a right to voice their opinion. Nobody’s right to free speech was compromised. If Kimberly and Beck want to voice divisive opinions, they is free to do so. If listeners want to stop tuning in radio stations no longer want to hire them, as a result of their statements, they, too, are free to do so.
Slam the door and throw away the key. These 2 “REDNECK” idiots should”ve been gone long ago.
Hateful? I don’t think so. In bad taste and predictably ignorant, like many of their rants. The Lonsberry column is much worse, and I can only imagine what has been said on his show, which I don’t listen to, so I won’t complain.
In the end, Kimberly and Beck are accountable only to their advertisers (please, go back to fourth grade, this is not a free speech issue). There is always a point where an advertiser will say “this is enough” and they will cancel. Station management obviously felt they were perilously close to that point.
I don’t have a problem with their firing. Some things offend me more than others. If I’m offended, I won’t listen, but I won’t assume that everyone else must feel the same as me. If I am moved enough, I might call the station or an advertiser and tell them I won’t listen or support the advertiser.
Thank you, kharma!! what goes around….
Psst! Hey Sarah! The constitution only protects freedom of speech from congress trying to control it. Not private companies. People also have a right to openly state that they find whatever private company puts out there, and protest it.
Just an FYI to everyone, NY state is an “employment at will” state. This means an employer can fire you for any reason they deem appropriate. The only exception is if you are part of a protected calls (i.e. cant be fired for race, religion, etc…) Kimberley could have been fired for being blonde, Beck could have been fired for being bald, they both could have been fired for being stupid. In the end, they get fired because their employer fears loss of revenue. These are all legal reasons to be fired in NYS. They had the right to say whatever they wanted and their employer had the right to fire them for almost any reason they could come up with,
Well it is not surprising that we have gotten to this point . Kimberly and Beck’s job was to make offensive comments on the radio for entertainment purposes. They did this so well that they made money for their employee by doing so, and they did, for a long time. Eventually thought they crossed some imaginary line and lost their jobs. Everyone is at fault here, Kimberly, Beck, Entercom, and the listeners. Perhaps it is time we stop listening to people who offend for a living and start insisting on intelligent, polite, and informative dialogue.
Kimberly and Beck got what they deserved!!!!!!!!!!!! They always said if you do something wrong we will talk about it LOL Well we are talking now . Lets see how easy it is to get a job when Kimberly always ranked on people who didnt have one or couldnt pay their bills because of hardships. We were all tired how she bragged about spending the money ,
KARMA BITES BACK
They didn’t say anything that bad.
They were not hysterical, they were speaking up for themselves! The city isn’t giving them benefits!
What I find most interesting is that they have said things far more offensive in the past with little or no reaction or outrage.
Is this a freedom of speech issue? Well, the supreme court recently voted that prayer is ok before town meetings.
I know it doesn’t pay the bills, but at least Kimberly and Beck can take some comfort in knowing that most of the supreme court justices are probably on their side.
Finally, let’s clean up some of these trashy radio stations. Honestly, one cannot listen to the radio anymore without feeling brain dead. Ahhh the dumbing of America. My favorite morning show (sarcastic) had employees measuring their penises on air. Yup, we all know how you make the penis grow….all on air for all of us to hear. Wonder how you explain that to Jr. sitting in the car seat.
So we all gather in the comments section of a news site and do exactly what Kimberly and Beck did. Talk smack about people none of us have even met, riding high on our horse, stroking our egos, and pretending we have done something constructive by acting exactly like the people we profess so deeply to dislike. They where out of line, but the amount of hate speech I’ve been seeing in just the coverage of this whole event is equally disturbing. I guess that the Kimberly and Beck show does indeed represent the good people of Rochester. That much is obvious….way to go everybody. What was it someone said? Oh yeah, mental capacity and emotional maturity of a blueberry scone.
Since a lot of people are mentioning free speech:
Free speech means the government can not stop you from expressing controversial opinions. It doesn’t mean that a private corporation needs to give a microphone to an idiot. In this case, two radio hosts embarrassed their employer enough to cost advertising dollars and be fired. Free speech has nothing to do with it.
So many small minds… what happened to common sense and stand on simple principles of being a good person… everything is just noise. That makes any decisions of what comes out of your mouth easy. It was just a matter of time. K & B never had a clue that someday their time would end. But they made a choice to play the stations game of push the envelope. Being unkind never served anyone well. Karma is always out to balance the good and bad. They were given ample time to choose different, they didn’t so they get what they deserve.
It is possible that this whole episode was planned as a way for Kimberly and Beck to go out in style and create a national name for themselves. Kimberly, at least, is a proven publicity hound and bared her soul on 20-20 when she allowed cameras to follow her and her husband around in their home during a segment on marital problems that aired a few years ago. These guys are in a business where the worst thing you can be is ignored. Better to be infamous than forgotten. Their contract was coming up over the next year, and one gets the impression that it may not have been renewed, putting this incident into perspective. Maybe they wanted to get fired.
The only thing that should actually be taken from this is, we the tax payers, should not have to pay for this procedure. You are allowed to choose to live your life however you want. You can also choose to pay for it yourself.
“Taxes” are paying *part* of the insurance premium (shared by the employee) that goes toward thousands of different medical treatments, procedures, prescriptions, etc.
So why, kimbeck1, do you get to decide to disqualify a particular procedure that you disagree with? What about my taxes going toward viagra and cialis for men married to post-menapausaul woment (or single men for that matter) because the treatment does not foster procreation? What about drugs for high blood pressure or high cholesterol for those who refuse to change unhealthy habits? What about immunizations if I believe they cause autism?
Kimberly and Beck could have gotten their point across without being hurtful, they made a big mistake and owe a big apoligy to the Transgender community. Do I think they should lose their jobs over it, No, there is a big lesson to be learned, they got spanked, I don’t think their lives should be completely ruined from it. We’ve all made our point, now, move on for God’s sake. I do want to thank them for bringing out in the open about Transgender being covered under their health insurance. Most people have no ill feeling with anyone choosing to be a Transgender, but, it is a choice, not a health issue and it should be paid for by the person that makes that choice for themselves. I had to fight an insurance company to get coverage for a knee treatment for a family member that could bearly walk. We are having a hard time getting many medical issues covered that disable many people, no less having Transgender procedures covered. We have a long way to go before we should be covering Transgender issues. If you cover Transgender, where would it stop, I’d love to have a facelift, spider viens, ect. taken care of for me, but, it is not reasonable to expect that when so many people are struggling with life altering problems that I should expect it to be covered under my insurance. Be big girls and boys and pay for your own Transgender treatments like the rest of us have to with things we’d like to change about ourselves . I won’t be getting a facelift and a few other things I’d like to change about myself because I can’t afford it, so oh poor me, just like, oh poor you. Put your big boy/girl pants on and have some common sense. There is no reason to feel offended, noone cares what you choose for your life,but, we are offended we are paying for it in paying our already expensive health care. Have a great day!
Sore another one for political correctness and another loss for common sense, freedom and America.
How soon before WHAM announces K&B will join their roster of radio idiots like Lonsberry et al.? It’s fascinating to wonder who listens to these paid bigots posing as “entertainers” or, in Lonsberry’s case, “pundit”. The fact that these clowns make money for their owners says something as well about their audience.
Ms. Broekhuizen-
You said “Most people have no ill feeling with anyone choosing to be a Transgender, but, it is a choice,”
In fact, recent science has shown that it is biologically determined. Just as some children are born with ambiguous genitals (the medical term is “intersex,” similar to the archaic “hermaphrodite” but more general; e.g. a person might have a typically female external anatomy but XY chromosomes, etc…), about an equal number are born with brain structure and chemistry that do not match their physical sex. We know this from MRI scans and dissecting the brains of cadavers. Further, identical twins separated at birth show a VERY strong genetic connection; if one twin is transgender, the other twin is HUNDREDS of times more likely to also be transgender than if it were caused by the environment or other random factors. (~1/3-4 vs. ~1:1000-2000)
It’s true that whether or not to physically TRANSITION is a choice, but the pros and cons are totally different for transgender people than they would be for anyone else.
I did not agree with K&B’s opinions and my heart goes out to anyone that is struggling to be a gender that is not really them BUT never ever would I protest or fire people that disagree with me. How arrogant is that? I turn the station or turn it off. The message I heard was that transgender issues are far more important and sensitive than any others. Not so.
Their apology was stupid and screamed that it was written by some corporate heads. I don’t believe they were fire because they were offensive, they always have been offensive. That is why the show was great. I think some big advertising contract threatened to walk away. So it wasn’t about offending transgenders, it was only about money.
Entercom acted too fast without thinking. They lost a #1 morning show, they lost listeners and will never EVER get any of that back. If they kept them, they would of a lost a bit at first but slowly built it back up.
America certainly has changed. All of you who are happy they got fired, there will be a time when you get in trouble for something you say. We cannot have this public lynching. Whether or not you agree with their statements, most of the country does agree. Yet we all have to keep quiet about it. This is very Orwellian and scary. It’s Donald Sterling getting booted out of the NBA for being illegally wiretapped in his own private life or it’s radio DJs getting fired for not violating any FCC rules. Understand this, this PC movement will affect you in your own personal life. Then I hope you will see the error of demonizing people with a differing opinion from yours. There is a HUGE difference from what they said and hateful speech. I’m sure people like Michael Sheppard would have loved if people only said these trivial things to him. In your efforts to be tolerant, you have become intolerant of other people’s opinions.
Sorry meant to type Matthew Sheppard. Correction.
The firing of Kimberley and Beck is totally ridiculous! The management should have stood behind their employees. Bring them back, they did NOTHING wrong!
Sirius XM.
Much better than morning blather.