Radio Column September 22, 2006

Listening In

September 22, 2006

By Sandy Wells


KFI’s John and Ken at ‘war’ with LA’s mayor


Two of radio’s most politically provoking personalities now see themselves as being in a state of ‘war’ with the mayor of Los Angeles. For KFI-AM 640’s John and Ken Show, who rate their effectiveness on how often they can goad the high and mighty into taking their bait, this may be their biggest catch to date.

At the 4th Annual Impact Awards luncheon sponsored by the Hispanic Media Coalition honoring Latino broadcasters in Beverly Hills last week, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa congratulated Spanish radio personalities such as KSCA-FM’s Eddie “Píolin” Sotello, for organizing the peaceful pro-immigration rallies last spring. He then paused and took a moment to scold the KFI afternoon talk show hosts, addressing them directly, “while the cameras are rolling.”

“Two people who get on the radio everyday, who share a commitment to dividing America, who demonize our immigrants,” said Villaraigosa. “Let us say to them, ‘Shame on you; shame on you for dividing America.’ But make no mistake, like the people we honor today, we will stand up, we will speak out, we will do it the right way, speaking out on behalf of an America that is bigger and better then the rhetoric that you put on your radio waves every single day.”

That afternoon, John and Ken were broadcasting from a special screening of the immigration-themed film “Border War” in Orange County. They broke in with the story of the mayor’s comments, adding that a KTLA-TV reporter was on the way to get their response.

“It was like a declaration of war,” Ken Chiampou later told KTLA-TV’s Willa Sandmeyer. “There was emotion and anger in his voice. But he did the same thing that all politicians do. He referred to the issue as the United States as ‘a nation of immigrants.’ He completely only talks about immigration, never dividing into the categories you have to divide. There are legal immigrants and there are illegal immigrants.”

KFI Program Director Robin Bertolucci did not offer a comment on this latest political imbroglio involving her drive time duo. Instead she handed me off to John Kobylt, who usually plays ‘bad cop’ to Ken Chiampou’s more reasonable ‘good cop’ attitude during their on air ruminations about the latest political or cultural outrage.

Kobylt admitted that he was initially surprised that the mayor, so often the target of their invective in the past, had picked that day to publicly condemn their show’s position on immigration.

He told me he felt Villraigosa was really just politicking in the typical way so many politicians do, by pandering to their base when they are in front of a friendly audience and unnoticed by the mainstream media.

“Villaraigosa had been off our radar for a while as we focused on Phil Angelides and Arnold Schwarzenegger. I wondered if he wasn’t just throwing meat out to the Spanish media crowd, not really noticing that Channel 5 was there. It’s jut like when (former) governor Davis signed the illegal drivers’ license bill with only Hispanic media there and our reporter Eric Leonard found out about it. These politicians are often trying to skip it by English media … (Villaraigosa is) firing up his base because he wants to run for governor.”

Kobylt explained that the mayor may not have considered that KTLA-TV would be there to cover the award being given to their own Carlos Amezcua for Excellence in Broadcast Journalism. Then, that story got upstaged by the mayor blasting the KFI hosts.

“The channel 5 news director thought this would be a big deal. Why he thought he should lead with the story, I don’t know.”

Typically, local broadcasters like to ingratiate themselves with those in power. John and Ken have made a name for themselves doing just the opposite. In their early days, as radio hosts in Trenton New Jersey, they openly ridiculed the state assembly after reading an article in the local paper about a huge tax increase that had been quietly voted into law in an after midnight session. They kept up the heat. Eighteen months later, they took credit for getting about a third of the state legislature voted out of office.

For Kobylt, the real scandal these days is the existence of a cowed and intimidated body politic, afraid to speak plainly to those in power. He feels that their show and its million-plus local audience, is making a difference in how people think about politics.

“The pc bubble has burst,” said Kobylt. “The stories that used to be scandalous aren’t any more. It’s a change of reality. The most common comment we get from listeners is ‘You say what we’re thinking.’ But they’re afraid to say these things. It’s about speaking the obvious truth. There’s a whole professional ‘lying class’ out there. Our whole niche is cutting through the b. s. and getting out the truth.”