I missed an interesting story yesterday with my focus on waiting for the Site C announcement – I’ll have a blog post on Site C soon, but I’ve received quite a few messages asking what I think of this:
Where to start… how about a little history? CFOX is not a news station. It’s rock station with a lot of shock-jock radio. The Jeff O’Neil show is famous (infamous?) for the stunts he and his co-hosts pull,along with games like this one. Kind of like a milder Howard Stern. I’d never heard of this game so I did a bit of looking around on the net. Clearly, it’s not intended to be a literal game, and one most people would imagine played in drunken college stupors during frat parties ( I see online it’s also played by teens as well) but what happened yesterday just ended up being wrong on many levels.
1.How it came to be that someone at CKNW figured that their regular listeners would enjoy the Jeff O’Neil show – even with guest hosts – is frankly, beyond me. Having been a guest on NW many times, I can assure you that if CKNW listeners wanted to hear CFOX, they would be already tuned into CFOX. If this was an attempt to draw in some new listeners to CKNW, it failed miserably.
2. It is implausible that anyone who has listened to the Jeff O’ Neil Show, or previously been on his show could claim to be shocked or surprised by anything said,done or asked on his show.Everyone who guests on his show knows very well anything could happen, and this isn’t the first time Global hosts have been on the show. To claim otherwise is disingenuous. If you don’t want to be put in an awkward position, don’t do it. He is not going to tone it down for anyone,or another station.
3. Freedom of speech protects every Canadian, barring hate speech or threats – implied or real. The Jeff O’ Neil show is definitely not my thing, yet it clearly has had lasting power with their audience. Fine. I make the comparison to the really bad TV shows out there that end up lasting forever like Big Brother- I don’t watch them either,but I get there is an audience for it. Had this not been simulcast on CKNW, likely no one would have noticed because the audience doesn’t cross over.
4. The situation was made worse by defending it in the face of very real outrage by women and men alike who have never heard of this game( including myself, until this) and consider it unacceptable and misogynist. Joking about any politician being eff’d, killed or married isn’t funny, especially with newscasters who report or deal with said politicians.
Violence against anyone is a sensitive and very real issue. We’ve just endured the Ghomeshi revelations and subsequent confessions of women around the world. Ironically, just the day before this segment aired, Global aired this story of violence against women and the sobering stats of how many women have been killed in BC this year alone by a partner: http://globalnews.ca/news/1728385/he-beat-me-to-a-pulp-b-c-faces-epidemic-of-domestic-violence/
“There have been 20 murders, seven attempted murders and nine perpetrators have taken their own lives in murder-suicides.”
It shouldn’t require an explanation of why this game is offensive to many, but if you needed one, that link above tells you why.
I think for the Global hosts involved – who regularly report stories on politics, or violence and present those to their audience – it’s a problem when you knowingly guest in another venue that might put you at odds with your regular role. Lesson learned.
CKNW apologized, and Global has done the same. Jeff O’ Neil will likely still keep playing pranks and games like this, and it can’t be said by anyone who might appear from this point on that they didn’t expect whatever came at them.
They too, have offered an apology http://www.cfox.com/2014/12/16/from-the-jeff-oneil-show/
Like it or not – and I don’t– that frat house stuff is his shtick.
It’s often twisted,but if his listeners didn’t like it, he wouldn’t be doing it. As mentioned above,had this not been simulcast on CKNW, likely no one would have noticed because the audience doesn’t cross over.
Global morning host Sophie Lui was on earlier this year, played the same game, was given the names of some of her colleagues as choices and no outrage… but then it wasn’t simulcast on CKNW. https://soundcloud.com/cfoxvan/the-jeff-oneil-show-vs-sophie
Our right to freedom of speech comes with responsibility.
Part of that is personal judgement on what is appropriate for an age group, a venue or a certain audience – much like the way movie ratings are done to protect children from inappropriate content.
We don’t consider that censorship, we call it common sense – something that was missing on several fronts in this event.
Westcoast Views with Laila Yuile 
I think that Jeff O’Neill should run for premier.
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It sure seems that the most stupid people get the plum jobs. Whatever happened to growing up and maturing properly – along with a lot of other stuff that happens, it kind of leaves you speechless.
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Thanks Laila for your Informed blog on this ‘event’. So many people were relying on gossip and didn’t know the complete story – only that ‘something bad’ happened that warranted an apology. CKNW has been my fave talk radio station until some of the NEW people have come on air. ONE we already knew had the misogynist ‘bent’. I was so surprised he got that prized spot and have had to turn it off on several occasions. 😦 For me, Simi Sara is the only reason to listen these days (of COURSE John McComb) I wonder WHO is letting the misogyny slip into the station? I hear it in sports too – so I rarely listen there anymore. What do the advertisers think?
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Newspapers have made themselves irrelevant by refusing to do real journalism and other media are falling into the same trap. Even the quality of purely entertainment programming has become so oriented toward that lowest common denominator that, for people like Jeff O’Neill to succeed, there have to be a significant part of the population who’ve disabled their social restraints and turned off the filters of any kind of taste. “What once were vices now are habits.”
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Have we travelled back to the 70’s?
Clearly these young men do not get it. Chris and Squire are seasoned broadcasters and often ad-lib so I find their follow up comments a day late and a dollar short and don’t accept their apology.
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Thank you Laila. And for mentioning multimillionaire looooo-zer Howard Stern in your post, (he came to my mind, as soon as I heard about this incident). That show should be terminated, the station fined, and Jeff ONeil should go down south and apply to work with Stern, where apparently, that kind of ignorance is better appreciated.
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http://www.cknw.com/2014/12/17/cfox-morning-show/?sc_ref=facebook
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T the bottom of the page – there is a link to The NEW daytime hosts ‘bio’ or point of view on how he wants to change talk radio (fm Aug) This fellow was the defender of O’Neill and uses that kind of attitude frequently – after MILF i just dont know
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Jeff O’ Neil has shown himself to be an idiot in this incident – but it doesn’t matter much. To us the public or to him. He’s only a rock and roll DJ without a following (meaning political/ thought following) that do not pay much attention to his statements.
I haven’t followed all of the twists and turns of this incident but if my past experience is a guide, Mr. O’Neil will apologize and in doing so will be chastened and restrained for some time.
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Well-stated Dan.
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To Messrs Gaillus and Barnes I would ask the same question as should have been posed to Ms Clark regarding the infamous MILF matter: Whatever happened to the ability to stop, think and respond appropriately to such smut?
And to Messrs O’Neill and Drex, see above paragraph. You fellas are poor imitations of whatever it is you are trying to imitate. The era of the shock quip and apparent necessity for an instantaneous, “witty” response produces so much immaturity.
Have a Merry Christmas, and perhaps ask Santa for a wee bit of talent.
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Well is this any indication of how desperate the management at CKNW has become?
Plummeting ratings due to the firing and or ‘forced retirement” of controversial dj’s such as Rafe Mair. To be replaced by the most boring (Bill Good comes to mind) or inane (Christy Clark definitely comes to mind) DJ’s on the planet
So this is where the once mighty ‘NW has fallen. The basement of the ratings pile….. Scraping the bottom of the barrel for the likes of Drex( never was a DJ more appropriately named “Drecks”) or Jeff O’Kneel( I know, I know, I misspelled his name but one wonders how many knee pads he’s worn out kissing corperate butt in order to keep his job).
CKNW ……….. a detailed management case study on how to kill a top rated station in less than a decade.
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