Notable Incidents: United States
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- July 12, 1979: WLUP Chicago disc jockeys Steve Dahl and Garry Meier staged "Disco Demolition Night" at Comiskey Park between games of a scheduled Chicago White Sox-Detroit Tigers double-header. Fans were granted admittance to the games for 98 cents if they also donated unwanted disco records to be blown up at Comiskey's second base during the event. After the records were blown up, fans spilled onto the playing field and rioted, causing the White Sox to forfeit the scheduled second game.
- October 1993: Matthew "Mancow" Muller made national headlines while working for radio station KYLD in San Francisco, California. At the time, a story had been circulated that President Clinton had tied up traffic on an LAX runway for over an hour because of a haircut on Air Force One. Mancow staged a parody of this incident on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge during rush hour, using vans to block the westbound lanes of the bridge, while his sidekick Jesus "Chuy" Gomez got a haircut. Muller was convicted of a felony by a San Francisco Municipal Court and sentenced to three years probation, ordered to perform 100 hours of community service and fined $500, while KYLD settled a lawsuit filed by a bridge commuter for $1.5 million. Mancow later had his felony conviction expunged.
- April 1995: On the Don Imus radio show, US Senator Al D'Amato put on a comical Asian accent and criticized judge Lance Ito for personal interest in allowing television cameras in the O. J. Simpson murder trial. Imus was criticized for keeping D'Amato on air because of the shock value of the senator's comments.
- February 27, 2001: Bubba the Love Sponge had a pig castrated and killed on the air. Bubba was charged with animal cruelty, but was acquitted.
- June 12, 2001: A rumour that Britney Spears was dead was scotched by her publicists after the story was spread by two US radio DJs and a hoax website using the BBC logo. Dallas shock jocks Kramer and Twitch told listeners to their KEGL-FM evening show that pop singer Spears and her then boyfriend Justin Timberlake had been involved in a car accident in Los Angeles. The hoax sparked panic among fans, who called police and fire departments in their hundreds. The story was then turned into a spoof version of a BBC News Online web page, and the link was sent around the world by e-mail. The BBC lodged a strong protest, and the spoof page was removed.
- August 16, 2002: Opie and Anthony sponsored a contest where the goal was to have sex in notable public places, called Sex For Sam. The contest went without a major outcry until Sex for Sam 3 after a couple had sex in a vestibule at St. Patrick's Cathedral. The resulting controversy led to Infinity Broadcasting cancelling the Opie and Anthony Show. Infinity was fined $357,500 USD for the incident.
- April 8, 2004: Howard Stern's show was cancelled by Clear Channel Communications after they were fined $495,000 USD for a number of statements made during a Stern show. Stern later used his remaining market share to criticize Clear Channel and the Bush Administration, and left the public airwaves to move to satellite radio, which is not subject to the same FCC decency regulations.
- April 9, 2004: The Regular Guys of WKLS 96 Rock in Atlanta, Georgia were fired after a graphic interview with porn movie actress Devin Lane was accidentally aired over a Honda commercial. That interview was intended to be played backwards when they returned from the break, mocking the FCC indecency crackdown at the time.
- May 12, 2004: Portland, Oregon disk jockeys Marconi and Tiny played the audio portion of the video of Nick Berg's murder on their morning program several times, accompanied by music, jokes, and laughter over the scenes. The pair were fired on the same day.
- May 15, 2007: XM suspended Opie and Anthony for 30 days after a homeless man making a guest appearance described how he would like to have a threesome with the United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and First Lady Laura Bush, and abused Queen Elizabeth II.
- March 2, 2012: Rush Limbaugh, is criticized and faced with an advertiser exodus after making misogynist comments toward activist Sandra Fluke. Limbaugh was not disciplined for the remarks.
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Famous quotes containing the words united states, notable, united and/or states:
“An inquiry about the attitude towards the release of so-called political prisoners. I should be very sorry to see the United States holding anyone in confinement on account of any opinion that that person might hold. It is a fundamental tenet of our institutions that people have a right to believe what they want to believe and hold such opinions as they want to hold without having to answer to anyone for their private opinion.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
“Every notable advance in technique or organization has to be paid for, and in most cases the debit is more or less equivalent to the credit. Except of course when it’s more than equivalent, as it has been with universal education, for example, or wireless, or these damned aeroplanes. In which case, of course, your progress is a step backwards and downwards.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
“God knows that any man who would seek the presidency of the United States is a fool for his pains. The burden is all but intolerable, and the things that I have to do are just as much as the human spirit can carry.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
“It is impossible for a stranger traveling through the United States to tell from the appearance of the people or the country whether he is in Toledo, Ohio, or Portland, Oregon. Ninety million Americans cut their hair in the same way, eat each morning exactly the same breakfast, tie up the small girls’ curls with precisely the same kind of ribbon fashioned into bows exactly alike; and in every way all try to look and act as much like all the others as they can.”
—Alfred Harmsworth, Lord Northcliffe (1865–1922)