Yet another conservative commentator has insulted and attacked survivors of the Parkland, Florida school shooting. This time, it’s St. Louis TV and radio host Jamie Allman, who tweeted he was “preparing” to assault the modern poster child for reasonable gun control, David Hogg. According to CNN, the Sinclair Broadcast Group officially confirmed the commentator had resigned, with his nightly St. Louis show being canceled.
“We have accepted Mr. Allman’s resignation and his show has been canceled,” said Ronn Torossian, active spokesman for Sinclair Broadcast Group, and public relations executive. “There will be no further statement at this time.”
Like most of these commentators, it seems their egos and unchecked aggression is simply unmanageable. For somebody to make the remarks Allman did in a serious manner, publicly, is plainly stupid—particularly in the era we currently live in. How do these people expect not to get caught, shamed, and punished for threatening children? The now-deleted tweet was simply inexcusable.
“When we kick their ass they all like to claim we’re drunk,” it reportedly read. “I’ve been hanging out getting ready to ram a hot poker up David Hogg’s ass tomorrow. Busy working. Preparing.” Unfortunately, Allman hosts another show on KFTK 97.1 FM in St. Louis. According to CNN, neither the owner, Entercom, nor the program director, have responded in regards to Allman’s potential resignation from their network. Following the tweet leading to Allman’s resignation from the first show, Missouri state Rep. Stacey Newman shared a list of the commentator’s advertisers on Facebook, urging these companies to end their business relationships with man.
“He has repeatedly attacked Stoneman Douglas high school gun violence survivors and Parkway School District high school students on social media in the most vile manner you can’t even imagine,” Newman wrote. “We demand advertisers stop being complicit. Stop supporting an adult who spews such hate.” The results, as you’d imagine, we’re firmly on the side of protecting financial self-interest and removing oneself from Allman at all costs. Hopefully, some of these companies distanced themselves for more genuine reasons, but nonetheless, Allman is losing advertisers.
Unlike Fox News’ Laura Ingraham, who lost a third of her advertisers for publicly mocking David Hogg, Jamie Allman has yet to apologize. On the other hand, it seems clear that many of these modern public apologies are nothing but a mere attempt to protect one's business interests. Hogg himself accepted Ingraham’s apology, but made sure to mention the fact that she only did so “after a third of her advertisers pulled out.”
Whether or not Allman apologizes for his insensitive statement, in that sense, is not the issue here—it’s that he recognizes how insensitive it was and that he tries to do better in the future, if given the chance.
