What Jessica McBride Actually Said

Jessica McBride has been under attack in the leftist blogosphere for supposedly “finding humor in the murder of Jasmine Owens.”

Wisopinion has finally posted the actual audio of the segment that was supposedly “offensive.”

A more compact version is here.

Listen for yourself.

And ask yourself whether the humor was directed at the murder of Jasmine Owens, or at Eugene Kane, who chronically produces mealymouthed responses to the real urban problems that afflict Milwaukee.

Also ask yourself whether this is even a tiny bit worse than liberal comics who have fun at the expense of President Bush on the issue of Iraq.

If the murder of young Jasmine Owens was a tragedy (which it was) isn’t Iraq a “tragedy?” So how is one allowed to make jokes at Bush’s expense on the issue of Iraq, and not make jokes at Kane’s expense that reference inner city crime?

The answer: the vendetta against McBride was driven mostly by ideology.

WTMJ Has Pulled Jessica McBride’s Blog Offline

Trying to get it at the usual location gets a big 404.

This happened just this morning.

Pulling the blog was done in response to an explicit request (demand, really) made by McBride late Saturday night. Understandably unhappy with being abruptly pulled off the air, McBride told Tom Parker at WTMJ:

I have decided that I am not interested in being affiliated with Journal Communications in any fashion anymore. Thank you for the offer to continue my blog, but I have decided to decline. Please remove my picture, my editorial content, and my name immediately from your site.

Parker was conciliatory, asking McBride for the web address of her new blog, in case listeners requested it.

Of course, McBride can be found at her old blog location, which does not depend on the good will of WTMJ management.

[Update]

McBride’s new/old blog is getting pounded with traffic. As of this moment (8:20 p.m.), she is getting 83 hits per hour and has gotten 1,391 hits today.

You can see the status as of the time you are reading this by hitting this link.

So she doesn’t seem to be hurting a lot due to ending her affiliation with WTMJ. She now has complete editorial control and a lot of readers. She shook some things up, and posted an award-winning series on an inner city youth, before she became a corporate blogger for WTMJ. There is plenty of reason to expect her to pick up where she left off.

Liberal Blogger Who Is Key Jessica McBride Critic Lost Job Competition to McBride

We have yet to comment on L’Affaire McBride, in which conservative blogger and radio host Jessica McBride has been under attack from liberal bloggers for a parody “interview” with Journal-Sentinel columnist and race-card specialist Eugene Kane.

The interview ridiculed Kane for his ineffectual responses who issues facing Milwaukee’s black community, including the murder of young Jasmine Owens. Liberals and leftists, starting with the Journal-Sentinel’s Tim Cuprisin, howled.

McBride was let go by WTMJ, although apparently the flap only hastened her departure, which was mostly driven by the station’s hope of getting better ratings with Dennis Miller’s nationally syndicated show.

Now the Marquette Warrior has learned that one of the liberal bloggers who led the attack on McBride is a man who lost out to her in a job competition at UWM.

McBride alluded to this in a blog post on the flap. Taking the management of WTMJ to task, she sayd:

. . . it’s important that corporate management defend its hosts, particularly when partisan liberal blogs (including a juvenile/abusive anonymous one and one run by the man who was the other finalist for my job at UWM) are driving the outrage in concert with the liberal media.

Among the liberal and leftist bloggers in southeast Wisconsin, it was not too difficult to identify the person who, having lost out to her in a job competition, now attacks her.

He is James Rowen, a blogger at Uppity Wisconsin and The Political Environment.

Rowen has been incessantly critical of McBride, attacking her here, and here, and here.

And also here and here.

Suspecting that Rowen was the “disappointed job seeker” we e-mailed him as follows:

James,

Jessica McBride, in an entry on her blog . . .

mcbridemediamatters.blogspot.com/2007/05/kenosha.html

. . . mentions that some blogger who has been critical of her lost out in a job competition with her at UWM.

Was that you?

Rowen replied:

Yes. And that is why I commented only on her TMJ work.

No doubt most of the campaign against McBride has been driven by ideology. Liberals simply can’t stand to hear conservative ideas expressed.

But it seems that one of the lead liberal bloggers attacking her has a rather personal motive.

At a minimum, Rowen should have revealed that he lost a job to McBride in the interests of full disclosure.

Further, if UWM should let McBride go, would Rowen not be at the head of the line for the job he failed to get last time?

[Update]

It turns out that Real Debate Wisconsin scooped us on this.

We developed the story independently, and got confirmation from Rowen, but Real Debate got the story online first.

Credit where credit is due.