Morning host Kevin Kiley is out at CBS Sports “92.3 The Fan” WKRK Cleveland.
Kiley told WOIO-TV last night that he submitted his resignation in November effective at the end of this month, but was not on the air this morning with co-host Ken Carman. Kiley claimed he was being censored by CBS likely over his comments about women having no place in the NFL; comments that garnered national attention.
And I have no right to accept censorship. I’ve never been censored. In 35 years, I’ve never been censored, and I shouldn’t have been censored for this. And I have no right to accept censorship based on what broadcasting is. And nor should you accept censorship, ever. You should make sure that the people on the radio are telling you the truth as they see it. Now, you’re gonna argue with them and you can disagree with them, but don’t let the program director there, don’t let the general manager, don’t let some clown in New York tell them what to say, and then you think it’s their opinion, or what not to say. That’s what happened here, and I’m not accepting it. So, demand the truth. We’ll see how they feel about the truth, trust me, if I’m on the air tomorrow morning.
Kiley joined WKRK when it flipped to Sports in 2011. He previously has worked at Sports stations such as WTEM Washington, KRLD-FM Dallas, WQAM Miami, and was the first afternoon host at Fox Sports Radio.
We are in a particularly bad place in this country when people who are hired to give their opinions – on an opinion based show – can’t give their true opinion, or feel a need to couch it in “P.C.” language, thus diluting his or her true opinion.
Freedom of speech is under attack, not just from this, but from other things that have gone on where people lose their jobs/careers just because they have a different opinion on hot-button issues then “the boss”.
How is this freedom of speech though? The first amendment protects speech against the government, not a private entity. If CBS doesn’t want the negative publicity from their employee making comments they do not agree with, they have the right to punish him or let him go.
There’s obviously more to this story than just the claims of “censorship.”
Even if Kiley’s claim of “resigning in November, effective at the end of February” was true, that made him a lame duck host. What would he have cared about being told what he could or couldn’t say on the air, when he was going to be leaving the station, the market, and likely broadcasting as a whole in a few weeks time?
This was a case where Kiley knew he was out, so he figured if he was going down, he was gonna go down swinging.
Kind of looks like a “going out in a blaze of glory” kinda deal here (to me anyway).