Many Upset Over Firing of Jeannine Graf

Many Upset Over Firing
of Jeannine Graf

Nat Hentoff Says WTKK “Disgraced Themselves”

By Ed Oliver
January 10, 2001

Talk host Jeannine Graf often said she believes in encouraging “the free market of ideas.” In the political correctness of our day, many are saying that her sudden dismissal last week from radio station WTKK was another nail in the coffin for that concept.

One of her frequent guests and a champion of free speech, Nat Hentoff, was shocked and angry when he heard the news about the dismissal.

In praise of Graf, Hentoff told Massachusetts News that he can’t claim yet to have met every talk host around the country, but if he were to give a prize it would be to Jeannine Graf and David Brudnoy equally, “for holding up the idea that we all presumably believe in, which is free speech.”

Hentoff, who first gained nationwide praise as a writer for the liberal Village Voice, has according to the Washington Post, “come to be acknowledged as a foremost authority in the area of First Amendment defense. He is also an expert on the Bill of Rights, the Supreme Court, student rights and education.”

The prominent columnist and author was born and educated in Boston.

Hentoff said, “You can’t say you believe in free speech if what you mean is you only believe in the free speech of people with whom you agree.”

He said that it is those few radio stations which allow responsible talk hosts who hold strong ideas about freedom of speech and who welcome others on their show to voice their ideas, which keep free speech alive. This is the current equivalent of the town meeting, he said.

“The loss is obviously the station’s. I think they have disgraced themselves,” said Hentoff.

He said the Fistgate scandal was probably the most controversial topic Graf covered. “I got on the air then too. I broke the judge’s gag rule. People had a right to know what went on at those sessions at Tufts. There was nothing wrong with her putting that on the air and getting such constitutional experts as Alan Dershowitz of Harvard and Harvey Silverglade, who is a very prominent national civil rights and civil liberties attorney.

“She was doing her job, and the other stations were not doing their job. That was a time when the newspapers, except briefly in the Boston Herald, were silent.”

Hentoff said he knows something about gag rules because he writes about the law and he writes for the prestigious Editor and Publisher magazine.

“That was the largest gag rule in the history of the United States,” he said. “It applied not only to newspapers, radio and all the media, it applied to the state legislature! The other media, the other radio stations, television stations, newspapers, except again the Herald, were silent.

“The only people that went to court and broke at least part of that gag rule was a lawyer for Fox News television. Here you had a city that was put on silence by a judge -- which is not, to say the least, ‘the American way’ -- and only Jeannine had the courage to tell what was going on.

“As a result, as a reward, she’s fired.”

Hentoff said he does not believe that she was fired as a result of a fiscal decision, which is what the radio station told Graf when they called her at home Thursday and told her not to come in.

“If it was a fiscal move, let them justify it by the ratings. The burden of proof is on them. Particularly since she is so controversial, which is the whole point of talk radio. If it was a fiscal move, why did they change her prime time slot and put her on later hours? Was that a signal for her to leave?”

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