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This issue opened on 4.22.2010 | Previous Issues
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Earth Day? A Slight Historical Correction
Memphis Radio Wars - Ferguson Out, Clarksenior In, Thaddeus Rules
Wha? Can't Taste at the BBQ Festival? |
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...when they unceremoniously canned talk show emiritus and career print journalist Mike Fleming last year to be replaced by Ben Ferguson? By my listening, Ferguson at least firmly held the conservative Republicans. Listeners were shocked at Fleming's sudden ouster and subsequent replacement with Ferguson. Perhaps Fleming was holding out for more money. But for WREC there was the price you pay and then the price you pay. Whatever the reason, it hadn't taken long to see the graffiti on the wall: Thaddeus Matthews, calling himself in his own intro cheekily "racist" (I would helpfully suggest "homophobe" and "sexist" as well) and former repo man, bounty hunter and cadaver transporter for the N. J. Ford and Sons Funeral Home, inc., had pulled to the top in Arbitron numbers. Was Thaddeus, an overbearing, frequently obnoxious and racially centered black guy, even pulling white listeners from WREC? I don't know the answer, but, I find Mathews a hoot in a shameless sort of way. He is a radio entreprenueur, with his urban listening customers buying his product: activist advocacy journalism and talk that frequently crosses the line. On hot button stories, which he'll turn into race stories as necessary, he is virtually always in front of local media. For example, he outraged the Memphis Police Department by publishing post mortem photos of the victims of the Lester Street murders, a particularly tragic and grisley mass murder when an ex-con slaughtered 6 and wounded 3, many in his own family. But its not only the police that have hot contempt for him. He has focused a blunt, crude and unsparing tongue to the traditional icons of the black community. He is an aggressive powerhouse, a one man tabloid Fleet Street, covering Memphis in ways other media, he claims every day, won't, a marketing hyperbole to be sure. Could he portend a new style of talk radio? A style that claim that starts with group affiliation, but actually crosses over in content? If so, how? So I'm drawn, yet repulsed. My fingers seem to have mind of their own as they bounce between 990 and 600 as I'm driving and of late have generally let 990 play out till I reach my destination. More than once, but not very often, I'd actually wait for his commercial break before leaving the car. Why? I think people like his "overarching attributes" and ignore, or even like as well, his faults. He's Unpredictable, inconsistent, chaotic, impulsive, humorous to the point of actually being funny, genuine, very often offensive and overdosed with his own hubris, not the least of which is a raw arrogant opportunism that compels him to twist every issue into a racial one and justify every call for a dollar to be put to use in the higher mission of keeping his show aloft--or namely his. One of his tenets is that blacks can't be prejudiced. Another is, wherever possible, only conduct business with other black businesses. Despite those respective lapses and antiquated race-centric notions, Matthews forte' as a radioman is both reporting and advocating for his listeners' community, frequently putting politicians themselves in awkward spots. He doesn't hesitate to call them unannounced (and call them out) on the air. On Monday April 27, with Canecia and Michael Moore sitting in his small studio during an interview about a police drug raid where Ms. Moore was forced to disrobe and undergo a destructive search of her home, Matthews asked for City Council members to call in--then and now on the air. To the chagrin of listeners, none did, which raised the level of Matthews ire, like mercury rising with the temperature in a Memphis summer. We hear an electronic ring tone in the background... ...A woman's voice answers and Matthews says quickly, "Janiceyou'reonontheair." City Council member Janice Fullilove, a political ally, friend and business associate (Matthews says she will have a show on his blues music radio station Matthews plans to launch later this year), told me at a city council meeting the next day she had not been listening and is used to Matthews cold calling her unannounced. Nevertheless, I felt a brief "oh, #@%!". Fullilove recovered quickly to say she wanted Ms. Moore to know she was looking into the situation, saying she needed to hear both sides. Despite their friendship, you could almost hear Matthews ticking over the line. 
Left to right: Memphis City Council Member Wanda Halbert, Thaddeus Matthews, Council Member Janis Fullilove. At least now it wasn't a call from the likes of Ben Ferguson, who I never heard call anyone unannounced in show. But he had skewered her mercilesly day after day on the air for her legal troubles including a DUI charge, an accident in which a 7-year-old girl was injured, going into rehab and then getting arrested for obtaining a driver's license under false pretenses in Mississippi in July '09. She was censured by the council. Media captured her on video delivering meals on wheels for MIFA, a popular nonprofit service organization, without a driver's license. Throughout it all, Matthews dispensed warm support to her on air while Ferguson (and Ferguson's predecessor Mike Fleming) tore into her, as well as into Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton (D), as yet another embarassment to the city. Throughout Matthew's interview with the Moores, he challenged city council members to call him. Using the term "negro" derisively to attack anybody in the black community not on board with him, including religious leaders, politicians and other talk show hosts (the latter another Matthews transgression rare in the industry, that otherwise would be considered "unprofessional" except to the shock jocks). He had moments earlier let loose: "I'm so tired of Negro meetings. We meet to see when we gonna meet again. I'm still waiting for one of you black politicans to call me. When are black folk that we elect going to stand up? When are you going to get the balls to stand up and do the right thing?" Now, he had one on the phone and he wasn't about to let her slide, friend or no. Little wonder none called. This loose canon put even a political ally on the spot and tolerated no foot dragging to act immediately on any facts other than his. In the Moore story, Matthews had been the first to get all over it and at the time of this writing (4.28.10) the Commercial Appeal apparently still had not reported on it, a "Canecia Moore" keyword search on the paper's site revealed. Fullilove interrupted Matthew's rant with her political voice to insert an emphatic statement she obviously hoped would finalize this phone conversation, that couldn't be ended soon enough and had gone from dicey to worse. Matthews asked her directly about her conversations with the mayor and other city departments, such as the Police Department Organized Crime Unit, involving the Moore case. She was becoming increasingly reluctant to blurt out premature information as Matthews was demanding live on air. She had to say something. "Mr. Matthews, at this point in time of my life, I have nothing and nobody to fear but the Lord. I'm going to do the right thing regardless. Wait for me tomorrow to do the right thing." When Matthews was on a roll and he didn't wait for anybody, Fullilove included, "Janice, here's what I say. This [meaning the Moore search by police] was a riot act. This woman was degraded and humiliated.(sic) Men were allowed to gawk at her body and they were even in the wrong place. She's got to repair her house herself. Internal affairs told her they were not going to investigate it... You as city council member and especially black city council and female member have heard about this. (sic) This goes beyond politics. (sic) This is right or wrong." Matthew's comments were followed by a long silence and finally the line died with a static whimper. Indeed, council members hardly had time to get the facts officially, much less take them from a firebrand live over the radio. But their phones, evidence of Matthews work, were ringing, according to what one city council member told Director of Police Larry A. Godwin, appearing before the Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee meeting the following morning. Godwin was seated before them to give an update on an even earlier police search warrant gone bad, way bad that time with the shooting death by Bartlett police serving a search warrant to Malcolm Shaw, an impoverished small time drug dealer living in a house without utilities, according to Matthew's blog. Matthews himself photographed the house, traced Shaw's final steps as he rounded his bedroom, with, the police said, a gun and was shot dead. South Park Move Over Matthews was enraged, challenging the police version and called the shooting "murder" and "assasination." Reprehensibly, he published the officers' home address over air, not once but several times. Going further without an ounce of self-restraint, he listed the names and ages of his young children, putting them at risk in much the same way radical Muslims recently published the addresses of the producers of South Park over an episode that offended them. Additionally, he listed several addresses of properties the officer owned, which he conjectured at length could be evidence the officer was mixed up in some sort of drug ring. No indictments in that case have been handed down, but Matthews aparently persuaded Senator Steve Cohen (D), a white candidate who is running a primary campaign for US Congress against Herenton, (D) again, to generate the FBI investigation. Both events vitalized, if not the black community in Memphis, at least Matthews's talk show listeners and blog readers. Members of the council seemed to be acutely aware of them. 
Police Direct Larry A. Godwin meets with the Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee of the Memphis City Council April 27 regarding the Malcolm Shaw shooting by Bartlett police. The shooting was a cause celebre over a search warrant for radio talk show host Thaddeus Matthews. It was followed soon thereafter with the Canecia Moore search warrant issue, which did not involve police shooting. The committee meeting the next day after the Moore intervew quickly became a standoff between the police director and most of the black council members. Matthews, sitting a few feet from him in the small meeting room, had called Godwin a "terrorist" over the latest botched search warrant. Among other things he contended that made the warrant invalid. It had the wrong names of the residents but the right address. Matthews alleged on his show the cops were trying to cover themselves by ransacking the Moore's home allegedly under direct orders of Godwin once it was discovered the people living there were not the residents named on the warrant, according to his police informant. Indeed, Godwin reported the FBI had opened an investigation into the Malcolm Shaw shooting and the city was fully cooperating. He said he could answer no specific questions about the Organized Crime Unit (OCU) because it would jeopardize "lives and ongoing investigations." In response to statements from Fullilove and council members Wanda Halbert and he knew nothing about any search warrant ever served under his command to the "wrong address." But nobody asked him about the "wrong names" on the warrant. The police director and his entourage scooted out of the meeting immediately following his presentation. Bad Schoolboy Bad! Council members had already scolded Godwin like a bad schoolboy. Halbert, who Matthews said had texted him and whom he chided to call in, said vaguely, "Something is wrong here. I'm uncomfortable. . . I know of case where there wasn't a warrant. What happens when the police go into homes, beat people up." (sic) 
Nothing negative intended, but I've learned to blend into the crowd when I see an officer over six feet high land a bead on me while shooting. But the problem with that was there was no crowd to blend into, with less than a dozen, most of them city staffers, in a tiny room. Left to right: unidentified, Memphis Police Deputy Chief of Investigations Joe Scott, Director of Police Larry A. Godwin confer at the committee meeting April 27 prior to Godwin's presentation. Godwin, flairing, proclaimed he wouldn't "buy into" that allegation and there had been no improper warrants carried out (despite the brazen fact of wrong names on the latest one), at which point committee chair and City Council Member Myron Lowery, suggested the two meet privately with Halbert and "report back." It was the kind of side-stepping move Matthews detests from a politican he detests, or at least acted like it. But Lowery only had 30 minute agenda and I suspected didn't want the commitee's limited time mired in allegations generated by the activist talk show host sitting a few feet away. No other setting symbolizes the pugnacious, bridge burning Matthews in his best gadfly journalist role. Here he was, having positioned himself equilaterally in close quarters by some 15 feet either way, between one despised politician, Myron Lowery, whom he had called a "Lard Ass" during Lowery's recent unsuccessful campaign for mayor and the chief law enforcement power of the city whom Matthews had called a "terrorist." In an inadvertant sort of way, it was an elegant balance, given the fact their feelings had to be mutual. "And you are just a dumb..." Like any business person who has overcome challenges to build a business, Matthews, not a corporate staffer by nature nor experience, independently, that is, without corporate backing, has driven his pay-for-play drive time slot into the most listened to program in Memphis. So when an indignant and condescending young white woman called in on none other than the day of the local Tea Party tax protest on April 15 to demand the name of his supervisor, Matthews at first enjoyed informing the caller (whom he would later goad by calling her a "little white chick") that he was "his own supervisor." The interchange that follows is from memory as I drove to the Tea Party protest. I am not inferring she was with the Tea Party protest in any way. "No, I want to know the NAME of your supervisor, your boss." "I am my boss." "No, I mean WHO at the station do you report to." Then Thaddy Bear said, "I bet you are the wife of that policeman we've been talking about," referring to the Bartlett officer who shot Mr. Shaw. She apparently did have some kind of connection, if not a political one. Excellent. "You don't even know that policeman you've been talking about," her voice dripping. "He would do anything to protect you." "Ah, you ARE the wife." "You don't know anything about who I am." "I don't give a damn. You are a little white girl." You know nothing about the way things are." "I done told your ass..." "Policemen protect you..." "You sound like a silly little white chick." Matthews voice remained even, almost placid, while the caller lost it. The sexism, as aberrant now as racism ever was, pushed her over the top. And then came the jaw dropper since live reports on the radio of the integration of the University of Arkansas. "And you're just a dumb n*****!" She slammed the phone down. "You'reontheair," he said placidly to the next caller without missing a beat while somewhere perhaps a young policeman's wife crumbled in emotional defeat and frustration, possibly sending her into tears and the nearest liquor cabinet. It was a moment of triumph for Thaddeus. Could this have been the living embodiment of his oft repeated on air thesis about the white power structure? When challenged by an independent, self directed black man at the top of the 21st century in Memphis, Tennessee, does it not show it's true colors? For her alone it does. And Matthews had successfully goaded her into playing into his own belief system. The Disappearance of Constance I cringed when he admonished on air his new young sidekick Constance, who had contemporary college studies, providing him culturally with a link to younger generations. She could be seen on his Web cam at www.thaddeusmatthews.com. This is the difference between a slick corporate show and Matthew's show. In just a few days he had engaged her in too personal conversation but he apparently felt she was conversing too much. "Don't overtalk me! You will be limited," he shouted, to which she was forced to reply meekly, "OK." The following few days he engaged callers and her about her private life and the day after that she, unsurprisingly, was gone. He grumbled to the effect, "This is the last time I will try to help a young person in radio." Originality vs Isms? I first heard Matthews years ago when he broadcast from the Memphis station of Flinn Broadcasting. At first I thought he was no different from a Black Panther style ideologue you might hear on KPFK in the 80's in Los Angeles where I worked in media and producing. But he was more than merely just pissed off at the way things had turned out for African Americans. Mixed with his black nationalism, he had an edge of wild entertainment you couldn't help but be attracted to. And now six years later, is this his way of "crossing over" since more whites seem to be listening? Further, and differencing him from many corporate talkers, he does not rehash (or outright read without attribution as Ferguson frequently did) of local and national news. Matthews is so "independent" that no corporate entity would dare affiliate with him and more like Michael Savage who is independent and tough talking too, but conservative. He was fired from MSNBC after making anti-gay comments. Savage is aired 7 pm weekdays on WREC (when the station doesn't replace him with sports). But listeners don't have to think of themselves as liberal to get into the Thaddy Bear groove because liberalism is not his thing. About the only thing I've ever heard him say that was "liberal" was, "Don't you think everybody deserves health care?" and then disjointed comments about the recent Democratic health care bill. Could the stepchild of the radio industry, pay-for-play radio stations like KWAM 990, a station of no set political identity with shows ranging from Laura Ingraham to Dr Laura to neutral longtimers like Phil Valentine, among a motlety collection of others, become the petrie dish for more Matthews type clones? For $3,000 a week, the cavernous voiced fiftyish Matthews can now crow he has vanquished the opposition in the form of the more soprano mid-twentyish Ferguson, who claimed amassing radio credentials from age 13, a degree form Ole Miss, (which is way better than that "commuter school" University of Memphis he propounded in an entire show to his Memphis audience, no comment from U of M) and who, for a while at least, maintained the remaining Mike Fleming listenership in the same time slot. As in most things, Matthews' rise shows you don't need a college degree in talk radio, just balls, a part of the anatomy he frequently accuses black politicians of not having. Like Hair Styles, Issues Change. With a James Earl Jones' laugh, Howard Stern's impertinence, sermonizing that sounds like Rev. Ike, an interview style that both coaxes and condemns and a Barry White voice that he sometimes drops into to tease his female callers, the Taddy Bear builds his audience. His is like a visit from your unconventional patriarchal uncle that showed up on Sunday smelling of cigars, last night's whiskey with a trace of perfume left by someone he did not reveal, an uncle you suspected had a lot more going than he talked about, if you know what I mean. Such is Thaddy, I believe, to a growing local following, black and white. His biggest flaw as a thinker: he's blinded by racialism, or interpreting all topics as racially motivated. But judging by their calls, his current crop of listeners love him for it. For example, in the police raid mentioned above, he all but ignores the fact the raid was first and foremost a drug raid, as was the previous search warrant incident in which the resident was shot dead. In Memphis, there is not even a cold race war, but there is a very hot drug war that sends people to an overcrowded jail and worse, which, somehow, Matthews conveniently misses. That may not be unintentional. Conceivably, dealing with ideologically applied "race issues" when they are more accurately a "drug war issue" keeps his market from drifting. The traditional right-wrong racial justice is something everybody, black and white, can get behind. It is more acceptable to listeners and advertisers to ally against a bad police shooting. But in both cases it was the drugs the police were after. Clearly, the drug war would be the crossover issue for any media activist looking for fresh issues. And sooner or later Matthews will have to do that because the oppressive white power structure will eventually wear thin with so many black politicians from the President down. Gotcha! Even the Kids And calling someone a child molester, as he did on the strength of an anonymous caller, represents his "Gotcha!" style radio in the same way he ran his "Gotcha!" auto repossession business in Memphis by the same name. (He says he made a lot of money towing away vehicles even from churches and weddings. An image of Matthews towing a "just married" car with streamers and trail of cans persists.) Unlike Ferguson's former local show in Memphis, Matthews panders little to national issues, sticking to what makes his people respond: half baked racial theories of a white power structure working to keep blacks in secondary economic position, exposing what he claims are racial incidents, suggestive sexual innuendo and roles "(Why are black women so hard to get along with?"), exposing false prophets (Is your pastor a "bamboozler?"), incompetent politicians, old time black church religion, attacking other black radio hosts by name as irrelevant ("Andrew Clarksenior is an idiot") while derisively dismissing white ones and pitching ad time, soliciting donations and investments so he can continue to work for black Memphians--because no other medium in Memphis does what he does, he says. But Matthews's claim he is the "King" of local media after he got his most recent ratings falls flat compared to his impact. (And remember what happened to Howard Stern who made the exact same claim, then was banished to satellite?) In the 2009 local elections, Matthews fought hard for atty. Charles Carpenter for mayor. Carpenter only got 5% of the vote, even after Matthews virtually turned his show into a campaign tool for his friend. He says his contract runs out with KWAM in July and he has secured a building in which to start his own radio station dedicated to the blues music genre and he can be heard soliciting investors. He may be hearing from not only the FCC, another three letter entity, the SEC. On a rainy Friday, April 23rd, he invited people to drop by the studio and bring him "tithes" or donations. By 6:30, nobody had, by his account. He's still dangerous for local incompetent politicians, corrupt cops, lazy media, venal preachers and businesses that discriminate on race. If he "goes pro," takes a higher verbal road and broadens his issues plate he can cover those and more and probably crack other markets. Regardless, the Truth is out there. He's no Fox Mulder in the X-Fles, he's better. He is the very real Grizzly Bear of Memphis radio. Respond |
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