June
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Newsvine - Media Matters: Incendiary rant exposes Dr. Laura (again)
"The year was 1998, and radio host Dr. Laura Schlessinger's celebrity was soaring. A media group had recently paid $71.5 million for her program -- the biggest radio deal at the time -- and the Los Angeles Times reported that she had the 'fastest-growing show in radio history, a program now aired on 450 stations in the United States, 30 in Canada -- where she is the No. 1 talk radio personality -- and in South Africa.' Schlessinger would soon begin discussions on hosting her own national TV show."
Just a few years later, Schlessinger began to stumble. In 2001, her syndicated Paramount television show was cancelled after a brief run, and in 2002, the New York Daily News reported that Schlessinger's radio audience had lost several million listeners.
Schlessinger's troubles then -- just like now -- began with incendiary remarks aimed at a minority group. During the 1990s, Schlesinger blasted "homosexuality" as "a biological error," "deviant behavior, a dysfunctional behavior," and linked gay men to pedophilia and child molestation. Schlessinger also touted "therapies which have been successful in helping a reasonable number of people become heterosexual.
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Nearly ten years later, the same controversy over Schlessinger played out again -- this time over racially tinged remarks to an African-American caller.
To give you a refresher, during the August 10 edition of her program, Schlessinger took a call from an African-American woman seeking advice on dealing with the resentment she felt when her white husband didn't speak out about racist comments his friends made. During the discussion, Schlessinger used the n-word 11 times, and told the caller that she had a "chip on [her] shoulder." Schlessinger added that "a lot of blacks voted for Obama" due to race and said that the caller shouldn't "marry out of [her] race" if she didn't "have a sense of humor."
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