Life's So Unfair! (Local Edition)

I'm fairly-baffled by Mark William's lawsuit against KFBK. Talk about biting the hand that fed you!

Williams had unusual liberty at KFBK, and used the station to campaign on any number of causes. Williams, for example, used the station to launch the latest manifestation of the West Coast branch of the campaign against illegal immigration, immediately following the 2003 California gubernatorial recall election. Williams also rallied mobs against the Pearces in Land Park (who live in the Bay Area but have a house here in the Land Park neighborhood) when they hung an effigy of a U.S. soldier on the home.

Nevertheless, immediately following the 2005 election, when the nurses got together and beat down Arnold Schwarzenegger's various conservative ballot initiatives, the mood changed at KFBK. The station immediately became more-moderate. Presumably station management had sent out a memo to curb the more-conservative elements at the station, elevating more business-oriented people like Tom Sullivan, at Williams' expense. Kind of a breath of fresh air, actually.

Looks like Williams didn't get the memo. Or didn't like the memo he got.

In any event, the things anyone at KFBK are alleged to have said against Williams pale in comparison to the sort of things Williams regularly said against others, like the Pearces, who were just exercising their right to free speech (In their home. On their property. Home being a man's castle, and all that presumably-conservative sentiment).

Well, if you can dish it out, you might as well take it!

As a radio talk-show host, Mark Williams made a living – and a name for himself locally – by being outspoken, controversial and, above all, relentless.

So should it be any surprise that the conservative broadcaster is battling hard and quite publicly with Sacramento radio giant KFBK (1530 AM) – which fired Williams in May 2006 – and its parent company?

If you've missed the fireworks so far: For the past 10 months, Williams has been embroiled in a lengthy and messy arbitration action seeking what he says is more than $80,000 in back pay.

And in May of this year, Williams filed a defamation suit against Clear Channel Broadcasting, KFBK's parent company, and several of its top employees, alleging that, among other transgressions, he was publicly called a "bozo," a "stalker" and "psychotic" on the air or on the Internet. He claims that such statements have hurt his reputation and violated a confidentiality agreement made at his termination.

He also claims that KFBK executives have hindered his prospects for getting another job. Since leaving KFBK, Williams has been freelancing and podcasting on www.marktalk.com. He's seeking unlimited damages in the case.

Last month, KFBK struck back. It filed a suit in Sacramento Superior Court asking that Williams' suit be dismissed on First Amendment grounds; that is, that any comments were made "in connection with an issue of public interest."

...A hearing is scheduled for Oct. 29.

Williams, who uncharacteristically declined to comment for weeks after filing his defamation suit, has broken his silence. And in interviews with The Bee and in comments made during his podcasts, Williams has railed at how a "major media company is trying to bankrupt one citizen."

KFBK general manager Jeff Holden, among those named in the suit, says he and the station have no comment on the case. But statements included with KFBK's suit portray Williams as a disgruntled ex-employee who, through his supporters, flooded the newsroom with phone calls and e-mails, and hounded station executives after being fired.

...At the time of Williams' firing, neither KFBK nor the talk show host would give a reason. But KFBK operations manager Alan Eisenson states in its lawsuit that Williams was fired because of poor ratings. Further, he states that Williams "had not been able to improve those ratings even after KFBK had informed him that it desired improvement ... and identified ways to make those improvements."

Williams counters by saying that he consistently finished among the top five shows in his time slot. His firing, he claims, was ideologically driven.

"I was told repeatedly by Alan Eisenson that my opposition to illegal immigration, my criticism of Arnold Schwarzenegger and my support for the troops were three huge negatives for me – that it was not what they wanted to hear on the radio," Williams says.

He also says Eisenson at one point told him, "Isn't there something you're more liberal on that you could talk about?"

More of Williams' grievances can be gleaned from his defamation suit. Among the comments Williams says defamed him, but which KFBK says are protected by free speech, are:

• On June 1, 2006, his replacement, Bruce Maiman, described him as "a defective, underperforming product which needed to be replaced."

• In a promotional announcement shortly thereafter, Williams says he was referred to as "that previous bozo." Eisenson, in KFBK's suit against Williams, confirmed that KFBK used an audio clip of a caller saying Williams "made me stop listening." But Eisenson says he "cannot discern (from the audio clip) whether that ('bozo') is the word the caller actually used."

• In a Wikipedia message-board posting about KFBK, Web site editor and afternoon producer Brendan Gage referred to Williams as a "borderline psychotic KFBK stalker" who "vandalize(d)" the KFBK site by making what it calls untrue comments.