San Diego, Cleveland, Jerry Springer, Air America

BUMPER BROUHAHA

Air America Fan Wrongly Canned? Plus: Springer Troubles



(Updated with new story)

After making news across the country, we wonder: can it really be true a San Diego County woman was fired over her car's Air America bumper sticker?

In a suit filed against her former employer, that's exactly what Linda Laroca contends: a KLSD-AM sticker was her undoing.

Excerpted from the North County Times:

Woman sues for alleged firing over talk show bumper sticker

By: TERI FIGUEROA - Staff Writer

VISTA ---- A San Diego County woman is suing her former employer, accusing her manager of firing her on the spot when she saw the woman's car had a bumper sticker advertising a progressive talk radio station.

In a civil suit filed at the county courthouse in Vista, Linda Laroca is targeting both her former manager, Beverly Fath, and the company she briefly worked for last year, Advantage Sales and Marketing, Inc.

Neither Laroca nor the defendants could be reached for comment Wednesday. Laroca's attorney declined comment.

Laroca, who was hired by the company as a sales representative, is seeking lost wages and damages for wrongful termination for violations of both public policy and the state labor code. She is also claiming state constitutional violations and emotional distress.

According to Laroca's suit, the bumper sticker in question read only: "1360 Air America Progressive Talk Radio."

In her Feb. 21 claim, Laroca asserts that on Oct. 8, three weeks after she started working for the marketing company, Fath called her on a Saturday and requested they meet at a nearby grocery store parking lot so Laroca could pass on some documents Fath needed.

During the brief encounter, Laroca charges, the manager pointed to the bumper sticker ---- the only one on Laroca's car ---- and remarked that it was a new sticker and called it "that Al Franken left-wing radical radio station."

Laroca alleges in her suit that Fath then told her, "The country is on a high state of alert. For all I know, you could be al-Qaida."

A stunned Laroca laughed nervously at the statement, the suit alleges, and then was dealt "the final blow" when Fath fired her on the spot.

At KLSD-AM, meanwhile, the suit is proving a free publicity bonanza, one the station is all too eager to exploit. Nor are liberal websites overlooking it, either.

Hey, why bother with nasty details such as the other side of the story? We don't know a thing about this women, but her claims must be legit, right?

Here, Alternet lefties dive in head-first:

You reap what you sow. For fifty years a central element of the right's strategy has been to demonize liberalism, a constant and rich part of America's political culture since the country's founding. The result is … brainwashed psychos like this Fath woman.

It's even worse at the lefty Sploid (excerpted here):

Woman fired over Air America sticker

[We love both our listeners!] (Radio Equalizer note: oddly, this line was embedded under an Air America graphic at Sploid)

A San Diego woman got fired for having a bumper sticker on her car advertising a liberal talk-radio station, and now she’s suing her boss.

Linda Laroca claims that her bumper sticker – which read "1360 Air America Progressive Talk Radio" – made her right-wing boss go berserk.

Notoriously right-wing San Diegans have been outraged ever since a local AM station began broadcasting Air America in late 2004.

When the defendant responds to the suit, what will these websites and media outlets have to say? Our guess: it won't get so much as a mention in the press.


UPDATE: yesterday, Laroca made the rounds of liberal talk shows. Teri Figueroa of the North County Times has a new story (excerpted here):

During interviews Friday, Linda Laroca said her former employer later told her the comment about the firing was a joke, and asked her back to work.

Laroca, alongside her attorneys, made her first public comments about the suit during an appearance on the Stacy Taylor show on KLSD, 1360 AM, a local affiliate of the progressive talk-radio network, Air America.

Laroca also spoke later in the day on two syndicated programs: the nationwide Ed Schultz show (a part of the Jones network) and Air America's national Randi Rhodes show, with Sam Seder filling in as a substitute host Friday.

Laroca alleges in her suit that her former manager spotted the bumper sticker advertising Air America, told Laroca she could be a member of al-Qaida, and fired her on the spot.

Laroca said Friday that the woman, Beverly Fath, called Laroca the Monday after the weekend incident to ask Laroca why she was not at work.

Laroca said that when she told Fath that she had thought the former manager had fired her two days prior, Fath allegedly told her that the comments about the firing had been in jest.

Asked if she had mistaken her former manager's alleged comments, Laroca told the North County Times she didn't believe the woman had been joking.

"If she was, I didn't take it that way," Laroca said. "She wasn't smiling."

The North County Times has been unable to locate Fath for comment, and no one answered the door Friday at a home thought to be Fath's residence.

A phone call to the company was received with a "no comment," and the attorney believed to be representing the company has not returned phone calls from the North County Times.

Is Laroca's account accurate? Perhaps, but even if so, it doesn't put the left in a position to make blanket statements about conservatives. If she's serious about her suit, appearing on all of these radio shows doesn't seem especially wise.



In Cleveland, it's curtains for Air America's Jerry Springer. In his home state of Ohio, that's a tough break!

Ohio Media Watch had the scoop, later verified by All Access:

ALL ACCESS has confirmed a story first reported by OHIO MEDIA WATCH this morning, the dropping of JERRY SPRINGER's syndicated show from CLEAR CHANNEL Talk WTAM-A/CLEVELAND.

The station is replacing SPRINGER with a "checkerboard" of local fill-in talent while a permanent local replacement is sought; SPRINGER, whose CLEAR CHANNEL show has been offered alongside AIR AMERICA RADIO programs as well as independently, will continue the show for the rest of his affiliates. SPRINGER's show has been airing on WTAM for about a year in the 9-11:45a slot.

Since it's not like Clear Channel to dump syndicated programming for local hosts, what's the rest of the story? Could it be they finally realized just how awful Springer sounds on the radio?

Or, since former Clear Channel exec Randy Michaels owns the show, is somebody in the company trying to send him a message?


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Franken behind bars: Alternet, Sticker Wars: KLSD-AM, Linda Laroca photo: Waldo Nilo for the North County Times, San Diego County, CA