Seattle Radio Host Suspended After Airing Rice Rumor But Spokane’s Clear Says He’s Done Nothing To Apologize For

One week after Mayor Norm Rice called a news conference to deny a scandalous rumor and blast “hot-talk” radio for airing it, KVI talk-show host Mike Siegel was suspended Monday.

In a release, Seattle-based Fisher Broadcasting said Siegel “has been suspended until further notice as a result of issues surrounding the airing of an unsubstantiated rumor on his program last month.”

The rumor - that Rice was shot by his wife while having sex with a male aide - was raised by KGA radioshow host Richard Clear of Spokane in an April simulcast of his show and Siegel’s.

Siegel apologized after Rice’s May 13 news conference. Clear said he had done nothing to apologize for.

The Fisher release said the company “has called a time-out in the action to fully and completely investigate all sides of the issue. No judgment about Mike’s future has been reached.”

Citadel Broadcasting, which owns KGA, referred requests for comment on the Siegel suspension to KGA-KJRB program director Dean Owen, who was out of the office until today.

Rice had long ignored the rumor, circulated since 1993 in newsletters produced by a fired city Water Department employee. Seattle’s two daily newspapers had investigated the allegation but found nothing to substantiate it and did not report it.

But Rice, a Democratic candidate for governor, decided he needed to speak out when he learned it had been broadcast in Spokane to an audience that knew little about him.

In the process, he blasted “hot-talk radio,” which he termed “hate-talk radio.”

“Let me be clear: KVI radio was not the original source of these lies,” Rice said. “But they have taken the hateful words put on paper by a former employee - even though they have admitted that these words did not contain one shred of truth - and deliberately spread these lies all across our state in an effort to hurt me and my family.”