Radio Active

William O'Shaughnessy

• Publisher: Whitney Media Publishing Group
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780823286706
• eBook ISBN: 9780823286713
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies
• Index: Social Sciences

Radio Active is William O'Shaughnessy's fifth collection of essays, on-air interviews, tributes and eulogies, endorsements, recollections of an evening, and more from "perhaps the finest broadcaster in America" whose commentaries are akin to "potato chips" per former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger because "You can't stop with only one."The book opens with a ringing signature defense of the First Amendment and collected O'Shaughnessy correspondence with heroes and "villains, " and insightful sections honoring former New York Governor Mario Cuomo, who said, "When O'Shaughnessy is on his game... he's better than anyone on the air or in print." There is also a section on the estimable Bush family.In eliciting "provocative and candid revelations" from his wide circle, this new compendium pulses with brilliant, insightful prose and a life-affirming reverence for luminous people, places, and events, past and present.

PART I

THE FIRST AMENDMENT

We’ve always had terrible things to defend …

Lawrence B. Taishoff, chairman,
Broadcasting Magazine

I’ve devoted a great deal of my professional life to advocacy for the First Amendment and free speech matters. So much so that I’ve been referred to over the years as a First Amendment voluptuary. I wear the designation as a badge of honor. Thus, I thought it appropriate to devote the first part to the aptly named First Amendment and how it has often been ignored in my own profession.

“Forty-five Simple Words”

by Jack Valenti

I carry around these notes that have sustained me over the years—especially during those moments when I wonder why my colleagues in the broadcasting profession always seem to let others speak for us on these fundamental issues.

These wise men and philosophers and others, so much wiser than Bill O’Shaughnessy, have spoken far more eloquently than I am able. Their counsel instructs us.

Actually, Jack Valenti, the diminutive, brilliant advisor to President Lyndon Johnson, who for many years led the Motion Picture Association of America, had the loveliest paean to the First Amendment: “It’s the greatest document ever struck off by the hand and brain of man.”

The most important lesson of all has to do with forty-five simple words. These words, bound together in spare, unadorned prose, are indispensable to the nation’s security, the wisest and most valuable design for democracy ever put to paper. We call it the First Amendment.

Of all the clauses in the Constitution, it is the one clause that guarantees everything else in the greatest document ever struck off by the hand and brain of man. Listen to these forty-five words, for they are freedom’s music: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or the press; or of the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

In our world where ambiguity infects almost everything, this is the loveliest example of non-ambiguity to be found anywhere. Concise, compact, marching in serried ranks, there is about these words the delicious taste of pure wisdom unsoiled by hesitancy. They don’t say “maybe a law” or “possibly a law” or “it depends on the circumstances.” What it says is no law, which is as clear as the mother tongue can make it. What that glorious amendment means is that no matter how fiery the rhetoric, or frenzied the debate, or how calamitous the cry, government cannot interrupt nor intervene in the speech of its citizens. We are the only nation on this wracked and weary planet with a First Amendment in the very entrails of our democratic process. Which is the prime reason why this republic has endured and prospered for so long.

It’s not easy to be a First Amendment advocate. You must allow that which you may judge to be meretricious, squalid, and without redeeming value to enter the marketplace. Often you become so irate at what is invading the culture of the community, particularly words and ideas from which some of us recoil, you want to call your congressional representative to urge him or her to pass a law and protect you from these blasphemous intrusions.

But before you make that call, be wary; be cautious, for throughout history whenever a tyrant first appears, he always comes as your protector. Never let your guard down. Never be beguiled by delusive enticements offered as cures for a disabled culture.

There is no right more crucial to the sustenance of liberty than the right to speak up, to speak out, to tell a story, compose a song, write a book, paint a picture, create a television program, make a movie, the way the creative artist chooses.

I do not quarrel with the passionate sincerity of some public officials and others who are vexed over what they judge to be a breakdown in the civic compact that governs the daily conduct of citizens. I can understand how they feel. But what we are all confronting is the new millennium of communications. It is a daunting confrontation. Through wire, cable, and fiber optic, over the air, underground, and through the ether, we are bombarded with felicities, an avalanche of information, overwhelmed by a tapestry of fragments, buried under data, chat rooms, millions of websites, hundreds of channels, all conveyed to our homes and computers by radio, cable, satellite, the Internet, TV networks and stations, DVDs, and podcasts.

To many of us it’s an invasion unlike anything we have ever known or read about. No wonder our anxieties are increased and our insecurities enlarged. Moreover, many parents fret about what this visual and audio sweep is doing to children. But as it was from the birth year of these United States to this hour, there are three citadels that build within children a moral shield that teaches the child what is right and what is plainly wrong. Once that shield is in place, it will rarely be penetrated by unruly intrusions or the blandishments of peers. These three citadels are home, church, and school.

If parents, clerics, or teachers treat their responsibilities casually, if the construction of that moral shield is feebly attended, then no law, no directive, no amount of handwringing will salvage that child’s conduct. But that’s the way it has always been and always will be.

As for me, I have but one objective. It is to fortify the right of artists to create what they choose, without fear of government intervention of any kind, at any level, for any reason. I want to stand with all other Americans who believe it is their solemn duty to preserve, protect, and defend forty-five simple words, to lay claim for generations of Americans yet unborn that the First Amendment means for them what it means for us, the rostrum from which spring the ornaments and the essentials of this free and loving land.

So wrote Jack Valenti, the Washington, D.C., insider who conjured up this towering and stunning appreciation of the seminal instrument we know as the First Amendment.

Bill O’Reilly’s “Character Assassination”: A WVOX Commentary

April 20, 2017

Some have called it a “firing,” others a “resignation,” and Politico elegantly and accurately referred to his downfall as a “defenestration,” which means an assassination by act of throwing someone out a window, or, in more polite discourse, “dismissing someone from a position of power.”

We’d call it a “lynching.” Granted that leverage may now be The New American Way. But the O’Reilly ouster also reeks of censorship by organized corporate intimidation.

“The old order shatters. We slayed the dragon. Never forget this is what we’re capable of,” bragged Lisa Bloom, attorney for a woman who launched a sexual harassment allegation.

“He was a mouthpiece for Trump … and we got him,” said another attacker, a U.S. congresswoman!

Marc E. Kasowitz, an O’Reilly lawyer, properly called it “A brutal campaign of character assassination unprecedented in post-McCarthy America. The smear campaign is being orchestrated by far-left organizations bent on destroying O’Reilly for political and financial reasons.” Bingo.

The Murdochs, père et fils, brought in Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton and Garrison to “investigate and report.” But the atmosphere at white shoe law firms is altogether different from the atmosphere at a television network where sharks swim and poseurs parade—behind and in front of the camera.

We can’t shake the notion that ultimately this is a free speech issue, although my friend Judge Jeffrey Bernbach cautions, “Sexual harassment is illegal. That’s not free speech.”

But who is to blame for the atmosphere, the milieu, the culture where most of the on-camera stars display pulchritude, low-cut décolletage, and fine legs abetted by rising hemlines.

Most performers on TV these days are talking airheads who if the teleprompter froze would also instantly become immobile. Most are not serious journalists.

There is something in the jargon of the law profession known as a BFOQ (Bona Fide Occupational Qualification), which means a woman or man can be hired and retained by a television network if he or she is comely or attractive. Thus, there is no question that female performers in this field are looking to get “noticed.”

Those prowling the corridors and posing in front of the cameras in this day and age are not exactly Mother Teresas. Or Janet Renos. Nor are they naïve.

When you look at some of O’Reilly’s female accusers and detractors, one wonders, Just who is the real predator?

Bill O’Reilly is a performer, a social commentator no different from Howard Stern or Don Imus or Rush Limbaugh, all of whom we defended when the roof fell in.

He was clearly done in by pressure groups and hostile public relations campaigns eagerly embraced by his envious competitors in the public press.

Although there appeared to be multiple allegations of misconduct, there are no reports that O’Reilly ever touched anybody. He just said stuff. Another interesting player in all this is Megyn Kelly, who turned on O’Reilly perhaps to facilitate her own highly orchestrated and well-publicized exit, and she has been called “that cyborg-like individual who wants to be the next Oprah” by the marvelous contrarian commentator Michael “Lionel” Lebron.

Suspicion exists abroad in the land that O’Reilly was accused by women who would do anything to get ahead in the Fox News milieu. But quality, educated, well-brought-up women know how to handle and deflect offensive moves and untoward and awkward, even predacious, compliments in most workplaces or social situations, which is not to say vulgar behavior is acceptable.

On the current Fox on-air roster of comely females is one Jeanine Pirro, well known to all of us and her neighbors here in Westchester. Few of her Fox female colleagues can match Her Honor Judge Jeanine in displaying pulchritude. And, as her former colleagues on the Westchester bench will readily—and admiringly—confirm, she can also swear like a trooper through those puffed-up, reconstructed lips. Certainly none wear shorter skirts. But could you see any guy taking a verbal shot at “Judge Jeanine”? At their own peril. Forget about it!

In the O’Reilly affair, the allegations against him did not seem to involve violent or even “nonconsensual” physical activity.

As an example, the New York Times cited this juicy vignette and ribald conversation: “O’Reilly stepped aside and let her off the elevator first (like a gentleman) and said: ‘Lookin’ good, gal!’ ” How altogether terrible! How insulting! How abusive! How sexist! How ribald! How injurious! How disgusting!

Many/most of the cant-filled attacks on O’Reilly were dripping with hypocritical or sanctimonious blather. The commentator Lionel also said this week: “This isn’t about sexual harassment. This is about sponsors and money.” We agree that the fault also resides among many holier-than-thou (spineless) sponsors who abandoned O’Reilly and collapsed in the face of organized, politically correct pressure fueled by envy and by contrary political (anti-Trump) views. That, we’re afraid, is really what’s behind this contretemps. And everyone knows it.

Despite any “findings” of the mighty Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton and Garrison white shoe law firm, O’Reilly should not have been fired or denied his platform.

To be sure, in this whole dreary matter, we’re confronted by a civility issue, which is valid, necessary, and altogether appropriate, even in a charged-up, behind-the-scenes office setting populated by bimbos—male and female—lacking in any solid journalistic credentials.

The organized opposition to O’Reilly—and thus to Fox News, and ultimately to President Trump—for the most part, used salacious accusations as weapons to knock him off the air and further drive their own agendas.

There are thousands of show-biz types and feminist lawyers just waiting to cash in on sexual discrimination and sexual harassment suits. But much of this resembles a witch hunt replete with character assassination. Among which was a ten-year-old allegation from an anonymous individual, part of a campaign orchestrated by activist lawyers and Trump haters to destroy O’Reilly.

I’ve discovered, just this morning, a humorless woman named Letitia James, the “Public Advocate” for New York City, who took to the MSNBC airwaves to attack Bill O’Reilly in harsh, unforgiving tones and a voice dripping with venom that made even Andrea Mitchell and some of her other guests uncomfortable. I’d love to see a debate between this Letitia James and Elizabeth Warren (the former is now attorney general of New York state and the latter aspires to the presidency).

Judge Bernbach doesn’t see this as a free speech issue. But censorship from corporate intimidation in the face of politically driven economic boycotts is just as dangerous as the stifling of creative and artistic expression by government fiat, decree, sanction, or regulation.

That’s just as treacherous as any racism, misogyny, sexism, or bigotry.

We agree with the president of the United States: “He should not have ‘resigned.’ He did nothing wrong.”

We agree and we also wonder if some of Bill O’Reilly’s opponents aren’t kith and kin to the mob that ganged up on our protégé and former colleague William “Billy” Bush.

—William O’Shaughnessy

The Silencing of Imus

Commentary by William O’Shaughnessy, April 16, 2007. Censorship from corporate timidity in the face of economic boycotts is just as dangerous as the stifling of creative and artistic expression by government fiat, decree, sanction or regulation.

Howard Stern, Opie and Anthony, Bob Grant, Bill Maher, Chris Rock, George Lopez, and even—God forbid!—Rosie. We’ve always had t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword by Mario M. Cuomo
• Introduction
• Part I. The First Amendment
• Part II. Open Mic Radio Interviews
• Part III. Of an Evening…
• Part IV. In Praise of “Vivid Souls”
• Part V. Eulogies: The Last Word
• Part VI. The Obligatory Mario M. Cuomo Section in Every Bill O’Shaughnessy Book
• Part VII. The Extraordinary Bush Family
• Part VIII. Airborne Endorsements
• Part IX. A Man of Letters
• Part X. The Great Issues. Abortion and He Death Penalty: Life in Every Instance
• Acknowledgments
• Index
• Photographs