Groups Boycott Radio Show’s Advertisers After Hosts Target Immigrant Advocate

MInority and immigrant rights groups have been pushing for John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou, hosts of The John and Ken Show on the Clear Channel radio station KFI in California, to be taken off the air ever since the hosts targeted an immigrant advocate in a Sept. 1 show. On air, the hosts gave out the personal cell phone number of Jorge-Mario Cabrera of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA).

Cabrera received hundreds of hateful and threatening phone calls afterward. “These calls were intent to diminish me as a person,” Cabrera told the Los Angeles Times. The show’s hosts have a history of discriminatory and vitriolic rhetoric, but this incident went too far:

The incident struck a chord among leaders of civil and immigrant rights groups across the state, many of whom saw it as the latest example in a long history of the popular radio show inciting anger and vitriol.

“It was the last straw,” said Alex Nogales, president and chief executive of the National Hispanic Media Coalition (NHMC). “These guys have been at it day in and day out. It’s the same ugly rhetoric.” [...]

Now the coalition has joined with several major Latino and immigrant rights groups, including the National Assn. of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials and the National Immigration Law Center, in calling on the radio station to remove the show’s hosts or face a boycott of its sponsors.

To pressure the sponsors, the NHMC has been asking people to contact the show’s major sponsors, such as Chevron, Hyundai, and Target, to ask them to stop sponsoring The John and Ken Show, and they are asking people to stop shopping at the advertisers if they don’t pull their ads. “As a consumer, let the advertisers know you are not willing to spend your hard earned money with businesses that support hate speech,” according to the NHMC’s campaign.

For more information about the campaign, click here.