Another key media player in this drama has been the St. Petersburg Times, the Tribune's competitor across the Bay. Interestingly, the Times, which for years had offered a long-running counterbalance to the Tribune's sinister take on Al-Arian, may have precipitated Al-Arian's firing when the paper seemed to turn on him after Sept. 11.

"I've gotten the distinct impression that something has happened at the St. Pete Times. Their coverage [on Al-Arian] has just deteriorated," says Joe Mahon, a former Middle Eastern oil executive who has met with local editors in recent years on behalf of Muslims in the Tampa community.

That shift most likely stemmed from the fact that the Times' Susan Aschoff, who worked the story for years, was taken off the beat on Sept. 28, just as Al-Arian's appearance on "The O'Reilly Factor" was exploding into a big national story.

Aschoff wouldn't discuss the move. But according to Mahon, who spoke with the reporter last fall, she was told the move stemmed from her "incompetence." Yet 10 months earlier Aschoff's editors had nominated her work for a Pulitzer Prize. (She's still with the paper, covering medical news.)

"She was clearly upset and did not know what was going on," says Mahon. "It puzzles me and I wonder if the paper was responding to pressure."

Norman Gross, who runs the local Jewish media-watch group, and who had complained about Aschoff's work in the past, was glad to see her go. "I just felt she'd become so taken with Al-Arian that she could no longer write a story without putting in a phrase or twist sympathetic to the cause."

Neither Times editor and president Paul Tash nor managing editor Neil Brown returned calls to discuss the newspaper's coverage.

The paper's Nov. 1 editorial, "Behind Al-Arian's Facade," added to the perception that after Sept. 11, St. Petersburg Times executives may have felt, at least from a P.R. standpoint, they were on the wrong side of an emotionally charged issue involving Middle Eastern terrorism.

Taking its lead from NBC's "Dateline" broadcast, the paper lashed out at the USF professor for "playing his American hosts for fools for years," and "spewing the most hateful sort of venom in the company of fellow Islamic extremists." (The paper's editorial board still maintains that Al-Arian was unjustly fired.)

Robert Friedman, who wrote the unsigned editorial, says it was based on new information aired by NBC. But Robin Blumner, a member of the paper's editorial board, insists "Dateline" simply aired allegations already familiar to local readers. "It was all old news," says Blumner, who lobbied unsuccessfully to have the wording of the Al-Arian editorial toned down. (The fact is, one year earlier the Tribune had written about the information Emerson used for his "Dateline" segment.)

The final media players in the Al-Arian debacle were the local Tampa talk radio jocks, who vilified Al-Arian for months. "The Clear Channel stations, especially 970 AM [WFLA] led the charge against Al-Arian," reports Bob Lorei, news director at Tampa's WMNF. Clear Channel is the largest owner of radio stations in America, with approximately 1,200 outlets nationwide, and eight in Tampa.

WFLA host Tedd Webb highlighted his ignorance of the case when he stated publicly that ABC turned to "a professor from USF" to secure a bin Laden interview. (Webb was presumably referring to Hamdi, who is not "a professor from USF.") He has also echoed Emerson's claim that "the terrorist cell operating at the University of South Florida was the largest ... in the world."

Than why no arrests? Webb had a conspiracy theory to explain that: "In an effort to bring peace in the Middle East between the Israelis and the Palestinians," the FBI never made a move on Al-Arian.

But Webb was the soul of journalistic probity compared to his R-rated Clear Channel colleague Todd Clem, better known as Bubba the Love Sponge. Even before Al-Arian appeared on "The O'Reilly Factor," Bubba was falsely telling Tampa listeners that Muslim students at USF had been seen celebrating the Sept. 11 attacks. University spokesman Michael Reich says the school called the station and spoke to representatives in the newsroom who conceded they knew the accusations were not true but that they had nothing to do with Bubba's program. The University's general counsel office then contacted Clear Channel's station manager, but to no avail. Bubba continued making the bogus claim, even insisting he had a videotape to prove it. He never did produce a tape. WXTB program director Brad Hardin did not return calls seeking comment.

(Even as the horrific events of Sept. 11 were unfolding, Bubba and his morning crew on WXTB managed to find moments of humor. Watching live TV shots of the World Trade Center engulfed in flames, Bubba suggested they crank call and tell workers there, "In case you guys don't know it, the building's on fire!" One sidekick joked, "You won't be able to go to Windows on the World for lunch today!")

One week after the terrorist attacks Bubba called a local doctor's office on the air and accused him of making anti-American comments. Three hundred angry Bubba listeners deluged the doctor with calls that morning, and his office was forced to close early. Unfortunately, the shock jock had the wrong man.

Then, after Bubba spent one October morning insulting Al-Arian on the air, the professor was hit with a wave of hate e-mails.

One would not think that Bubba the Love Sponge's role in fomenting a campaign of ignorant, hate-filled e-mails against a tenured professor would be something that University of South Florida administrators would highlight. But Jack Wheat, USF's special assistant to the president, recently answered an e-mail from a Salon reader who complained about the school's decision to fire Al-Arian with the following remarkable communication:

"Thank you for your message. Unfortunately, a good number of Americans do believe that he is speaking for the University. We have received hundreds of communications indicating that from people whose mastery of syntax and argumentation suggest that they are quite intelligent. More troubling have been the barrage of computer viruses sent by people who are intelligent but warped. But most troubling have been the death threats, often stimulated by local media personalities such as Bubba the Love Sponge, that have breached the safety of the learning environment. Dr. Al-Arian has violated the professional obligations that are clearly delineated in the contract negotiated by the faculty union and the State University System of Florida."

Wheat could not be reached for comment.

Al-Arian's battle to get his job back at USF will likely end up in the courts. Perhaps while his attorneys examine the university's egregious behavior, they should train their attention on some of America's biggest media players as well.

This story has been corrected.

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