`Dr. Laura' to End 30 Years on U.S. Radio After Using Racial Slurs on Air
Radio talk-show host Laura Schlessinger
Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images
Radio talk-show host Laura Schlessinger, seen here, apologized on her blog hours after using a slur for blacks 11 times during a conversation with a caller.
Radio talk-show host Laura Schlessinger, seen here, apologized on her blog hours after using a slur for blacks 11 times during a conversation with a caller. Photographer: Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images
Laura Schlessinger, the radio talk- show host who apologized last week for repeatedly using a racial slur on the air, said she will end the program when her contract expires at the end of this year.
“I’ve made the decision not to do radio anymore,” Schlessinger, known as “Dr. Laura,” said yesterday on CNN’s “Larry King Live.” “It’s time to move on to other venues where I could say my piece and not have to live in fear anymore that sponsors and their families are going to be upset.”
Schlessinger apologized on her blog hours after using a slur for blacks 11 times in a conversation with a caller, who said she was a black woman married to a white man. Schlessinger also said the caller was “hypersensitive” about racism.
General Motors Co. and Accor SA’s Motel 6 withdrew sponsorships from her show, the Associated Press reported, citing Corinne Baldassano, an executive at Schlessinger’s production company.
The show reaches about 9 million listeners weekly, according to Schlessinger’s website biography. Ad sales for the program are handled by Premiere Radio Networks, a part of Clear Channel Communications Inc. that provides services to more than 5,000 affiliates and reaches in excess of 190 million listeners each week, according to the company website.
“When I started in radio, when you said something that somebody disagreed with or they didn’t like, they argued with you,” Schlessinger told King. “Now they try to silence you. I was wrong and I apologized. But there are people who won’t accept my apology.”
Advice Call
Schlessinger used the slur when a caller asked the host for advice on how to handle friends who made racist comments. The caller then asked whether Schlessinger considered the slur inappropriate.
“Black guys use it all the time,” Schlessinger said before repeating the slur.
The commentator, whose books include “In Praise of Stay- at-Home Moms,” has been on the radio for more than 30 years. She has a Ph.D. in physiology from Columbia University in New York, according to her website. She also has been a faculty member at the University of Southern California and Pepperdine University in California, the website said.
Clear Channel, based in San Antonio, was taken over in July 2008 in a $17.9 billion buyout led by Bain Capital Partners LLC and Thomas H. Lee Partners LP.
The remaining publicly traded shares of the company were last quoted at $6.15 on Aug. 17 in over-the-counter trading.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jason Clenfield in Tokyo at jclenfield@bloomberg.net
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