On Wednesday, popular Washington, D.C., radio deejay and Howard Stern rival Doug "The Greaseman" Tracht committed such career suicide, linking the music of five-Grammy-winning hip-hopster Lauryn Hill to a headline-grabbing hate murder in Texas.
"No wonder people drag them behind trucks," said the 48-year-old Tracht, a Washington drive-time radio fixture for nearly two decades and whose show was once syndicated, after playing a portion of a Hill tune.
The remark followed white supremacist John William King's conviction in Texas for the dragging murder of James Byrd Jr., a crime he was sentenced to death for Thursday.
While justice wasn't nearly so tough on the Greaseman--known for his mix of social commentary and sophomoric sexual innuendo--he won't be working for WARW-FM anymore, at least not for now.
"After a review of Dough Tracht's remarks, we have decided to sever his relationship with WARW effective immediately," read a statement from the CBS-owned station.
"While we will always strongly support the right of our on-air artists to express a wide range of opinions, even those that are unpopular or offensive to some, WARW cannot be associated with the trivialization of an unspeakable act of violence now at the heart of the national debate on race."
The swift canning was praised by politicians and anti-defamation organizations, with Democratic D.C. Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton remarking that firing Tracht was "the least this city would have tolerated."
"Race relations in this city and this country are touch-and-go on their own," she added. "We don't need a public personality stoking the furnace of hate and bigotry."
As for Tracht, he struck an uncharacteristically apologetic pose for a shock jock, saying in a statement, "I'm truly sorry for the pain and hurt I've caused with my unfeeling comments. If I could take it back, I would. This remark was a grave error in my judgment."
It's not the first time Tracht has made headlines for anti-black comments on the air. Working for a different D.C. station in '86, he said of the Martin Luther King national holiday, "Kill four more and we can take a whole week off."
As for whether the shock radio genre will change significantly in the wake of a high-profile deejay's firing, media analyst Robert Lichter told Associated Press "things should go back to the way they were" fairly soon.
That could go for the Greaseman, as well. Deejay Bob Grant was fired from New York's WABC radio in 1996 for making racially insensitive remarks regarding the airplane-crash-death of then-Commerce Secretary Ron Brown.
Grant, who has referred to blacks as "savages" in the past, is working again for a rival New York station.