And so to this week's radio suspensions and sackings. TalkSport presenter Jon Gaunt has been suspended for calling a London councillor a "Nazi" and an "ignorant pig" during a live debate on plans by a local authority to ban smokers from fostering children. It's not clear if the councillor in question was a Nazi or an ignorant pig, but the radio station says it has decided to take Gaunt off the air while it investigates various listener complaints.
Gaunt's agent says that while the presenter regrets using the word "nazi" in that context, he is confident the investigation will clear him. Nick Canham of MPC Entertainment said: "Jon welcomes the investigation. The very nature of his show is quite bombastic on a regular basis. He apologised on air immediately. He regrets using the term but it was a slip of the tongue. He meant to say 'health Nazi' and he clarified it very quickly in the conversation. He hopes to be back on air very soon".
Elsewhere, BBC Radio Bristol presenter Sam Mason has been fired, not for something she said on-air, but for being a bit racist when ordered a taxi while at work. According to the Sun, Mason, who was ordering a taxi to pick up her daughter, asked for a non-Asian driver because she thought a foreign looking driver, and worst still one wearing a turban, might "freak her daughter out".
The operator at the taxi firm recorded the conversation, and the recording somehow got into the hands of Sun journalists. Despite the remarks being made in a private conversation, the Beeb decided to suspend and then fire Mason after the conversation was published. There are reports that the operator has also been fired for recording the conversation without warning the caller first.
Courtesy of Radio Today, here's what was reportedly said...
Mason: "I know this sounds really racist, but I'm not being - please, don't send anyone like, you know what I mean. An English person would be great, a female would be better".
Operator: "We would class that as being racist. We can't penalise the Asian drivers and just send an English one".
Mason: "You've managed it before".
Operator: "Right, OK. I don't agree with it personally".
Mason: "It's not your 14-year-old girl who's, you know, is it?"
Operator: "Yes, but that's racist to say you don't want an Asian driver".
Mason: "If it were me I wouldn't care if it had two heads, but it's my little girl we are talking about".
Having been passed onto a supervisor at the taxi firm, Mason continued: "I work at the BBC. I'm far from racist and that uneducated woman has no right to call me one. I don't want her to turn up with a guy with a turban on, it's going to freak her [the daughter] out. She's not used to Asians. She's not racist - her godparents are black".