The Chicago Tribune reported that conservative radio host Michael Berry, who is set to receive iHeartRadio’s “Talk Personality of the Year” award on Sunday, “mocks Chicago homicide victims in his regular feature, ‘Chicago Weekend Crime Report,’ which includes a shooting victim bingo game in which listeners are supposed to guess where in the body victims were shot.”

Berry will receive his award during the March 5 iHeartRadio Music Awards, which will be broadcast on TNT, TBS, and TruTv.

A March 2 Tribune article chronicled the various ways Berry mocks gun violence victims on his show, including by saying, “‘He won't have to live with that name anymore,'” days “after 14-year-old Tyjuan Poindexter was the unintended and blameless victim of a September 2015 drive-by shooting.” It also notes that “Berry joked that a bullet wound to a 30-year-old Chicago man's right leg would ensure ‘he will never be a professional field goal kicker’”:

A rising nationally syndicated conservative talk-radio star who makes fun of Chicago homicide victims on his show says he is being honored by his bosses at radio giant iHeartRadio as the “Talk Personality of the Year.”

Texan Michael Berry mocks Chicago homicide victims in his regular feature, “Chicago Weekend Crime Report,” which includes a shooting victim bingo game in which listeners are supposed to guess where in the body victims were shot.

“He won't have to live with that name anymore,” Berry chortled not long after 14-year-old Tyjuan Poindexter was the unintended and blameless victim of a September 2015 drive-by shooting.

[...]

Media Matters, a liberal media-monitoring organization that tracks conservative media, wrote about Berry online this week, and provided the Tribune with 10 clips from his shows. Those clips and others found online suggest that riffing on the fatal shootings of Chicagoans, particular African-Americans, is a routine part of the white 46-year-old former Houston council member's shtick. He refers to the segment as his “Butcher's Bill” and has been successful enough to have scored a 2015 interview with President Donald Trump, and to have become the nation's 16th highest-rated radio talker by the trade magazine, Talker.

[...]

Talker magazine also reported the award, which it said would be given to Berry in a televised ceremony Sunday in Los Angeles.

But Berry and his producer did not respond to calls from Chicago Inc. this week. Nor did bosses at Berry's Houston station, KTRH, nor did representatives of its parent company, iHeartMedia, which was formerly known as Clear Channel and owns 800 stations nationwide, including Chicago-based black music station WGCI-FM 107.5, as well as the iHeartRadio brand that Berry says will honor him.

Berry, who has referred to Chicago as “Thuglandia” and makes frequent sarcastic references to a black character he calls “Pookie” and the character's run-ins with the “po-po,” has been making Chicago gags for at least a year and a half, accompanied by the “Peter Gunn” theme from “The Blues Brothers.” Though his show is syndicated in cities across the South, in New York and in Oregon, and is available online, it is not broadcast by any Chicago stations.

That's not surprising. Less than two weeks ago, on Feb. 20, Berry joked that a bullet wound to a 30-year-old Chicago man's right leg would ensure “he will never be a professional field goal kicker.”

[...]

Media Matters' guns and public safety program director, Tim Johnson, said that, even by the debased standards of talk radio, Berry's comments about crime victims are “reprehensible.”

“If he was mocking the victims of a public mass shooting that makes national headlines instead of these very vulnerable people, advertisers would flee his show and he would be fired,” Johnson said.