I first heard of bombastic talk radio host John Ziegler when I read a profile of him in the April 2005 edition of The Atlantic, written by the late, great David Foster Wallace. The story traced his career—laden with controversy—and included a bit about Ziegler being fired for saying “nigger” on-air when he was working at a Nashville talk radio station.

According to Wallace, Ziegler posited on-air that Tiger Woods is living proof that “not all white people are racists,” and that “no white person would ever think of Tiger as a nigger,” because there’s a distinction between “people who just happen to be black and people who act like niggers.” He later used the word again, in reference to Mike Tyson, and the station fired him.

I forgot about Ziegler, then saw his name come up in an interview with him conducted by FiveThirtyEight.com founder and statistician Nate Silver, whose revolutionary algorithmic calculations have made him something of a phenomenon. In the interview, about a controversial Zogby poll Ziegler had commissioned, Ziegler twice told Silver to “Go fuck yourself.” Then I forgot about Ziegler again, until January of this year.

John Ziegler, seated at left, just prior to calling reporter Brendan Joel Kelley, at right, a “hack.” Photo is a still from the video online at www.anchoragepress.com/multimedia Listen to BJK talk to Eddie Burke and John Ziegler, from the June 5 broadcast on 700 KBYR, below. (Use arrows above to view more photos)

Around January 7, Ziegler leaked excerpts of his interviews with Governor Sarah Palin on his website and on YouTube, which came as a surprise to the administration. The clips were from his upcoming film, due to premier at the Conservative Political Action Conference on February 26. But the Palin clips, with her attacking Saturday Night Live and Katie Couric, became a national phenomenon.

Thing is, former Palin spokesman Bill McAllister had just told me that they were trying to keep the governor out of the national spotlight. I was working on a story entitled “Inside Palin’s war on the media” (from the January 15 issue), and McAllister told me, “We thought [the Ziegler interview] was going to be low key, frankly.”

“[Ziegler] was doing a documentary to present to a conservative group at a meeting in Washington six weeks from now,” McAllister continued. “That didn’t seem like a hot event. That’s obviously a month after the inauguration; obviously a lot of time has passed [since the election]; Obama’s now president; some of these other outstanding political questions like the vacancy in the U.S. Senate seat in New York will be resolved by then. It was a complete surprise to us that he pulled excerpts and put them on YouTube. It was not the governor’s intention to be in the national news on these subjects now. Absolutely not.”

Ziegler disagreed, and told me that McAllister simply wasn’t in the loop. Ziegler and I had a late night conversation in which we both employed vulgarities to the extreme, until I eventually hung up. He emailed my editor with some choice quotes I’d said; I agreed that I’d said them and the matter was settled.

In April I heard that Ziegler had been handcuffed and detained at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for refusing to leave a ceremony giving Katie Couric an award for her Palin interviews (which they weren’t allowing him into). He appeared intoxicated and refused to leave when asked, was cuffed, then dropped to the ground and went limp while complaining that the campus police were hurting him. I got a good laugh out of it. (see the clip here.)

Then I heard he was premiering his film, Media Malpractice: How Obama Got Elected and Palin Was Targeted (WITNESS THE DEATH OF JOURNALISM), at the Fireweed Theater last Thursday night.

I was interested in seeing the film, but also interested in seeing if Ziegler was capable of a civil conversation. A friend of mine brought a FlipCam, which is the size of a cell phone, and in the lobby I introduced myself to Ziegler, reminded him who I was, and he replied, “oh, you’re the hack.” I explained that I’m a nice guy, and just wanted to ask how his Alaska experience had been, but he said he was busy and we could set up a time for an interview later. A Fireweed Theater employee approached me and told me she sensed “attitude,” though I assured her I wasn’t there to cause trouble.

A few minutes later, I ran into Bob Lester of the Bob and Mark show on KWHL, who had emailed me several times that day about attending the film premiere, signing his emails, “Love you, Bob.” Lester introduced me to the First Gentleman, Todd Palin, and I was asking him about his experiences with the reporters from Sports Illustrated and Esquire who’d profiled him. While Todd and I were talking, a Fireweed Theater employee interrupted us and asked me to leave, which I promptly did.

From the parking lot I called Lester’s cell phone, and he came out to the lot with his son, Bobby Jr., and we talked a bit about Ziegler. Lester said he hadn’t heard of the guy until recently, and I suggested he check out Ziegler’s history.

Later, after the film, AlaskaReport.com’s Dennis Zaki and Progressive Alaska blogger Phil Munger interviewed Ziegler about this publication and myself, in which he called this paper “a joke” and called me “an advocate, and a hack.” He admitted he’s an advocate, not a journalist, but accused me of being the same. I beg to disagree, and invite him to read my body of work.

The next morning, Friday, Ziegler went on Bob and Mark calling me a hack and a liar. I posted the film of my interaction with Ziegler and removal from the theater on our website, along with Zaki’s interview, the film of Ziegler being arrested at USC, and a clip of Ziegler on a blind dating show, to contrast our interview styles and our personalities. Then Friday afternoon I went on Eddie Burke’s talk radio program on KBYR and talked about the situation with Eddie—Eddie had been at the premiere, and was selling copies of Media Malpractice from the station for $15, with all proceeds going to Toys for Tots. I paid $20 for my copy, since it was for a good cause.

I watched the film over the weekend, and it was what I expected, a skewed propagandist manifesto declaring that the media was in the tank for Obama and destroyed Palin. Hmmm, never heard that theory before. I’m glad I own the video though, and I’m glad that my 20 bucks went to Toys for Tots, and not Ziegler.

bjk@anchoragepress.com

To view the clips of Brendan Joel Kelley being removed from Ziegler’s film premiere, Ziegler commenting on the Press and Kelley, and some footage from Ziegler’s past video appearances, visit www.anchoragepress.com/multimedia.