A series of events involving a local liberal blogger, a San Francisco conservative radio station and the reaction of two of the larger corporate advertisers in the country -- Bank of America and MasterCard -- is revealing how slippery freedom of speech has become in the digital age.

The tale of Spocko, a self-described "fifth-tier" blogger who lives in San Francisco, exemplifies how one person with a computer and an Internet hookup can challenge the views of a major media corporation -- and what a media corporation will do to stop him.

For the past year, Spocko has been e-mailing advertisers of KSFO-AM with audio clips from its shows and asking sponsors to examine what they're supporting. Some sponsors have pulled their ads, after hearing clips like one of KSFO's Lee Rodgers suggesting that a protester be "stomped to death right there. Just stomp their bleeping guts out."

Now, bloggers and media freedom advocates are concerned about the legal reaction from Disney/ABC-owned KSFO. Shortly before Christmas, an ABC lawyer demanded that Spocko remove audio clips from his blog on the grounds that Spocko's posting of KSFO content was illegal. Digital freedom advocates counter that the clips constitute fair use and worry that critical voices could be silenced by corporations threatening legal action for violation of copyright law.

"That's inevitably been the modus operandi of the media companies in these types of situations," said Ronald Coleman, legal counsel for the Media Bloggers Association, which provides legal support to bloggers. "It doesn't matter the size of the blogger."

Spocko, who asked that his real name not be used because he fears retaliation, is a hobby blogger; he says he gets 15 visitors a day -- and no advertisers -- to his political and media criticism blog.

A little over a year ago, he became so annoyed by the "violent" tone of commentary on KSFO-AM that he and some of his readers e-mailed more than three dozen of the station's advertisers.

"I want to emphasize that if you withdraw your ads you aren't limiting their free speech, just removing your paid support of it," Spocko wrote to advertisers.

In a statement Wednesday, KSFO program director Ken Berry said, "Many of the remarks attributed to KSFO on the Internet are old, lacking context and, in some cases, outright lies. When our hosts have stepped over the line, they have apologized and have been reprimanded."

Berry declined to specify Wednesday which remarks were old or lies or who was reprimanded. Instead, at noon Friday, KSFO will pre-empt regular programming to allow four KSFO personalities cited in Spocko's e-mails to answer questions on-air about the controversy from the public, bloggers and media. "I don't tell people what to say, but I do think there will be some mea culpas there," Berry said.

Berry said KSFO will invite Spocko to appear on the air, but the blogger has declined such invitations in the past, saying in an e-mail to The Chronicle, "I'd be just another revenue generating 'event' for them to their audience, and they would love that kind of 'controversy' because it would MAKE them money and they still had control."

The station didn't have control over what Spocko sent to sponsors.

Among the clips circulated to advertisers was one of morning show co-host Melanie Morgan saying of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, "We've got a bull's-eye painted on her big laughing eyes." Morgan said she has never called for anybody's assassination and was speaking merely in political terms, as she is researching Pelosi's background for a book proposal. "Yes, this is a freedom of speech issue, and this individual is entitled to say what he wants to," said Morgan. "But he's trying to take away my livelihood, and I'm not trying to take away his."

After his Internet service provider received a letter from ABC lawyers, Spocko pulled down the 30 audio clips on his blog. But supporters have taken up his cause on influential liberal blogs like DailyKos and firedoglake, and reposted the clips all over the Web, arguing that Spocko's freedom of digital speech must be protected. A supportive YouTube video featuring some of the clips drew more than 31,000 viewers within days.

"One thing the Internet is good for is holding people accountable for their speech," said Karl Frisch, a spokesman for the liberal watchdog group Media Matters. For months, the organization has posted an online petition urging media outlets to not give a platform to "conservative hate merchants" like Morgan.

An attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation said Spocko didn't do anything that millions of bloggers don't do every day: post commentary alongside slices of copyrighted material.

"This is prototypical fair use of copyrighted material," said Matt Zimmerman, an attorney with the San Francisco civil liberties and digital privacy organization. EFF is not representing Spocko, but has reviewed his situation and is monitoring it. "Bloggers shouldn't have to be worried about being sued every time they post a screen shot from 'The Simpsons.' "

Spocko described himself as a communications professional, but is not a journalist and does not work for a KSFO competitor and is not a former or current station employee. Most of the clips he circulated were pulled from a morning drive-time show on KSFO co-hosted by Morgan and Rodgers and from an evening program hosted by Brian Sussman.

In one audio clip making the rounds, Sussman tells a caller: "I would take it that you're probably Muslim."

"No," the caller said, "I'm independent. I don't subscribe."

"Why don't you right now say Allah is a whore and that would prove it to me," Sussman said.

After receiving an e-mail from Spocko's group last spring about the station's content, KSFO advertiser Bank of America reviewed other programming on the station. Eventually, the corporation pulled its advertising after hearing material it felt was polarizing. MasterCard, which received similar e-mails about KSFO's programming, also decided not to advertise again on Sussman's show.

The Michigan Economic Development Corp. asked its ad buyer to exclude KSFO if it purchases time on the ABC radio network. Said spokesman Michael Shore on Wednesday: "The speech was about as offensive as one could imagine."

Spocko said it would be dangerous to dismiss the comments he's heard on KSFO as the sort of ratings-boosting hyperbole endemic to talk radio, even if it's uttered in the name of entertainment.

"It's entertainment until somebody is attacked," Spocko said. "Until it crosses the line, which I think this does."

© Copyright 2007 San Francisco Chronicle

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