Comedian Russell Brand has been accused of sexual assault and rape by four women from his past. In response, YouTube has demonetized his popular channel, and the BBC has removed content featuring Brand. 95.5 WSB afternoon host Eric Von Haessler believes the response has been overblown.
During The Von Haessler Doctrine Tuesday, a conversation about the reaction came up, with Von Haessler admitting that the entire situation makes him question his future working in corporate radio.
“This is something I have to wrestle with. Now, when I see what corporate media is doing with the Russell Brand story — again, of course, people need to be heard — but there’s also something called due process,” Von Haessler said. “The coverage of Russell Brand is as if we all know he’s guilty. They don’t say that but they don’t have to.”
Eric Von Haessler continued by questioning whether he was culpable in the reaction to Brand’s alleged misdeeds.
“There was a time in this country where an American in their DNA just understood that due process is important. With this one, you’ve got allegations all 10 years or older and zero evidence and then a mountain of corporate media saying this is just the worst guy ever. And that’s what led me to my kind of epiphany.
“My sort of epiphany or just question to myself is: I have a year and a half left. Do I want to stay inside of this? Is just being inside of corporate media part of the problem? Because this is not fairness,” Von Haessler said before mentioning that both Bill Clinton and Joe Biden were accused of sexual misconduct but weren’t treated the way Brand was.
“Am I part of the problem for being inside of that? It may be time just to go underground and accept whatever level of income that brings.”
