Lapointe: Is MSU football coach Mel Tucker the real victim here? | Michigan News | Detroit

Even if Mel Tucker forced phone sex on this rape counselor, she has no right to complain. No, the real victim here is Tucker himself, the suspended Michigan State University football coach.

This view may be rare in the Great Lakes State. But you could hear it loud and clear this week on 910AM Superstation, Detroit’s newest and most strident “conservative” news outlet. Also known as WFDF, it plans to shout louder than WJR (760-AM) on the right wing of local radio.

For example:

After boasting that billboards around the Motor City promote him and his partner, Buck Sexton, afternoon co-host Clay Travis this week defended Coach Tucker, who could lose more than $80 million if his university terminated him from his long-term contract after disciplinary action. hearings in October.

“He says she enjoyed it,” Travis said, speaking of the sexual discussions, which both parties acknowledge. “I think she liked it. She denounced him. She claims she panicked and couldn’t hang up. . . It’s a total sham.

Travis did not mention that the alleged victim – Brenda Tracy – said she was gang raped by athletes while she was in college and is using that as the basis for her campus cause. And he barely mentioned that she lectured the Spartans and other athletes about the limits of sexual behavior. He downplayed the coach’s masturbation.

Instead, Travis said, Tracy reported Tucker because Tucker did not invite her back to his East Lansing campus for another paid speaking engagement. According to Travis, Tracy and Tucker had 27 different phone conversations lasting an average of 30 minutes each.

Travis cited no sources for this. He said the allegations against Tucker will go unchallenged by most news media journalists and commentators because they are too intimidated by the allegations of sexual abuse of women on “Me Too.”

Although they talked about this Michigan issue last week, the Travis & Sexton show (noon to 3 p.m.) is nationally syndicated, as are most of the 910AM hosts. The station changed formats two weeks ago after a brief summer fling with syndicated sports, which replaced black talk and “urban” issues shows.

It will take a lot to challenge WJR, the haughty “Hateful Voice of the Great Lakes,” a fountain of passive-aggressive propaganda where the main daily question seems to be: “Is this news GOOD for the Republican Party or is it bad for the Republican Party?

But WFDF owner Kevin Adell said WJR made a major mistake by abandoning syndicated programs like Dan Bongino and replacing them with local hosts, at least from morning to evening.

“It’s a great station,” Adell said of WJR. But he also said he wanted 910AM to be a top ten station, like WJR was. “They fell,” Adell said. “Now they are in the top 17. . They’re not really conservative. They changed format. They went more to the middle of the road.

Because of this shift in tone, he said, 910AM will fill a void with proven right-wing audience grabbers like Glenn Beck (9 a.m.-12 p.m.), Sean Hannity (3 p.m.-6 p.m.) and Bill O’Reilly ( 9 a.m.-10 a.m.). p.m.).

Between Hannity and O’Reilly comes Jesse Kelly (6-9 p.m.), who mixes resentment and paranoia with the polite elan of a man who hears voices in his head and speaks in tongues.

He said the female “governor of New Mexico” — seeking to ban guns in Albuquerque — would have “started a lynching” during the time of the Founding Fathers. He declared that “liberal white women are the most evil creatures on the planet.”

He also said jailing the Jan. 6 rioters was “a disgusting injustice.” In one of his most famous quotes, Kelly — a former Marine and Iraq War veteran — told Carlson on Fox News Channel how soldiers should think.

“We need an army of Type-A men who want to sit on a throne of Chinese skulls,” Kelly told Carlson.

Last week, Kelly teased a random story with “Why are there drag queens in Oklahoma?” and said liberals are “making up a bunch of racial crimes that don’t really exist in America.” (All hosts at 9:10 appear to be white males).

By contrast, WJR’s most extreme host is syndicated fire-eater Mark Levin, who continues to rant weeknights against President Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal. Maybe WJR should just air recordings of Father Charles Coughlin, the “radio priest” of metro Detroit, whose hate radio DNA lives on a century later in the “golden tower of the Fisher Building.” .

Oddly enough, 910AM only has one local weekday show, hosted from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. by Justin Barclay, most recently with WOOD in Grand Rapids. Adell said Barclay will continue to broadcast from West Michigan for the time being and will be the only “local” show.

Last week’s editions of the morning show included Barclay’s impersonation of Dr. Anthony Fauci (“I’m as giddy as a schoolgirl” about the new COVID vaccine); a long audio clip of a Tucker Carlson speech in suburban Detroit; sound effects and other “shock jock” sound gadgets; and a lengthy interview with Pastor Ralph Rebandt, who ran for Michigan governor in the last Republican election and said he reads the New York Times and the Bible every day to see who wins.

“Satan is deceitful and clever,” the preacher told the 9:10 audience.

A regular guest who also files reports on the Barclay show is Henry Payne, automotive journalist for the Detroit News. Payne assessed the transition away from gasoline-powered cars and its political ramifications.

“The Democratic Party and the Environmental Protection Agency want to turn the auto industry into a public utility,” Payne said. “The Democratic Party has been invaded by a religious sect. »

Speaking of religious sects, host Barclay steered a different conversation around abortion funding in a piano parody of a “Pure Michigan” commercial. He attacked Governor Gretchen Whitmer (the “Wolverine Queen”) for supporting a woman’s right to choose.

“You can kill your baby on demand,” he said. “Come to Michigan, where the lakes are beautiful and you can kill your baby at any time. Stop by Dr. Death’s office. Let your weird flag fly. Pure Michigan.

Others might share the “pure Michigan” sarcasm by saying the slogan should include the suspension of football coaches at both Big Ten schools, population decline, timidity and disappearance of the news media, declining school exam results and dangerously deteriorating infrastructure. Oh, and what about those damn roads? Choose your camp, choose your station; there is a lot to say.

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