Shock Jock Slander?   

A slander suit filed by a Blade staff writer in Toledo charges a WVKS radio host with making defamatory statements.

Yet another lawsuit aims at toning down Toledo, Ohio, radio taunts. A slander suit, filed by Blade staff writer Sandra Svoboda, charges WVKS-FM radio host Denny Schaffer with making false and defamatory statements about a supposed intimate relationship between the reporter and John Robinson Block, the paper's co-publisher and editor in chief. Svoboda "absolutely" denies any such relationship, says her attorney, Fred Gittes. In October, according to the suit, Schaffer said on-air that Svoboda "is dating John Block," called her "John Block's toy," and asked, "Isn't she sleeping with one of the editors?" Schaffer's tirade began with criticism of Svoboda's articles about the University of Toledo, which he said she had slanted to conform to Block's views, says the suit. The first legal scuffle between the paper and the station's parent company, Clear Channel Communications Inc., began in late September, when the Blade filed suit against WVKS' sister station, WSPD-AM, for allegedly ripping and reading its stories without attribution (see Free Press, January/ February). Gittes says the insults aimed at Svoboda represent "another form of attack on the First Amendment. Instead of dealing with the content and ideas in articlesŠyou attack the reporters." The defendants had not yet responded at press time. Clear Channel-Toledo's general manager, Andy Stuart, declined to comment. Schaffer did not return phone calls.