User:Ursasapien/Sandbox/Savage

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In 1996, Savage applied to become the Dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley. The University instead selected award-winning journalist Orville Schell for the post. Savage sued the University, contending that he had been discriminated against because he was a conservative.^[1] Savage later dropped the lawsuit.^[2]

While Savage had a program on MSNBC, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) urged the show's sponsors to stop advertising on the show. Savage did not sue GLAAD, but Talk Radio Network Inc. (TRN), which syndicated his radio show, did sue the owners of three small noncommercial websites that had criticized Savage and endorsed the call for advertisers to withdraw their support for the show: http://www.savagestupidity.com, http://www.michaelsavagesucks.com, and http://www.takebackthemedia.com/. The suit alleged that the defendants had caused Savage financial damage by interfering with his relationship with advertisers, had used material from "The Michael Savage Show" without permission, and had spread "false and malicious" information about Savage.^[3] The suit was brought in Illinois, the location of Culligan, a company that stopped advertising with TRN.^[4] Public Citizen undertook the legal defense of the owners of savagestupidity.com.^[5] Savage also contended before the National Arbitration Forum that the "savagestupidity.com" and "michaelsavagesucks.com" domain names were "confusingly similar" to his own "michaelsavage.com", and that he should be given those domain names.^[6] Several months after filing the lawsuit, TRN withdrew it without obtaining any concessions from the defendants.^[7] The National Arbitration Forum ruled against Savage's claim.^[8]

In 2007, Savage sued the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) for its use on its website of excerpts from his show. The suit charged CAIR with copyright infringement and alleged that CAIR's "repackaging" of Savage's comments was "deliberately designed to obscure the specific message conveyed by Michael Savage". The excerpts included Savage's characterization of the Qur'an as "a throwback document" and a "book of hate". CAIR called the suit "bizarre, sloppy and baseless".^[9] A copy of the complaint can be found here: http://www.savage-productions.com/Savage_CAIR_suit.html