disaster zone

[alocispepraluger102]

NEW YORK (AP) -- Five years ago, Opie & Anthony were booted from the nation's airwaves for a stunt where listeners had sex in St. Patrick's Cathedral. On Tuesday morning, the shock jocks were back on the air, riffing on Don Imus' "nappy-headed hos" fiasco.

The latest collision of outrageous radio and outraged listeners is business as usual for morning radio, where jocks walking the line between bad taste and big ratings continually reinvent the art of self-destruction.

"The question is not `How far can we go?'" said Michael Harrison, publisher of the trade magazine Talkers. "It's always been, `Go as far as we can go.' And then you start testing the line again."

"The only rule is there are no rules," said Ron Kuby, the liberal co-host of a morning show on right-leaning WABC-AM. "Once you get beyond the FCC, a host is left to the discretion of a program director, station manager, bosses they've never seen, advertisers and a fickle public. What might be fine today results in a boycott tomorrow."

Even Imus admits he crossed the line with his comments about the Rutgers women's basketball team, which earned his show a two-week suspension. On Tuesday, Rutgers' president and basketball coach condemned Imus' "despicable" remarks and announced the team would meet with the embattled radio personality.

But economics often trumps emotion in an anything-goes business where stars like Imus have earned local radio stations and major media companies millions of dollars with their outrageous antics.

"Radio is where the hippest, most spontaneous pop culture exists, so it's therefore the place with the most controversy," Harrison said. "People are constantly dealing with crossing the line."

And then tripping over that ever-shifting marker, falling face-first into unemployment or anonymity after inserting both feet into their endlessly chattering mouths:

- Last May, DJ Star of the New York-based "Star & Buc Wild Morning Show" was fired after threatening to sexually abuse a rival DJ's 4-year-old daughter. For bad measure, he offered to urinate on the child and directed racial slurs at the girl's part-Asian mother.

- One year earlier, a three-minute musical "parody" about the killer south Asian tsunami led to the termination of New York-based Hot 97's morning show co-host and a producer. The same station paid a $240,000 settlement over a promotion dubbed "Smackfest," where women slapped each other for cash and prizes.

- In February 2004, popular Florida radio host Bubba the Love Sponge was fired for offensive material that included cartoon characters like George Jetson and Scooby Doo discussing sexual hijinks.

- Multiple offenders Greg "Opie" Hughes and Anthony Cumia were tossed off WNEW-FM in 2002 after the infamous St. Patrick's Cathedral stunt. They were fired four years earlier in Massachusetts for a misguided April Fool's joke where they announced Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino was killed in a car crash.

- And radio's biggest star, Howard Stern, always paid the biggest obscenity fines for his morning show before jumping to the unregulated haven of satellite radio.

Along with bad taste, most perpetrators had something else in common: They aired in morning drive-time, the most lucrative advertising slot for any radio station. An old radio mantra posits that as goes the morning, so goes the rest of the day.

"Stations want someone edgy and controversial, who creates cooler talk at the office," said Paul Heine, executive director of Billboard's Radio & Records. "It's a quick route to ratings success, but it's a double-edged sword. If you're out on a tightrope, you can fall over."

For Imus, with his national television audience and more than 70 stations for his syndicated radio show, controversy is nothing new - his longtime schtick includes cheap shots at people of every race, color and creed.

He reinvented himself years ago by bringing aboard A-list politicians, authors and journalists, although remnants of the past lingered on the program.

Harrison said radio has long served as an outpost for envelope-pushing material, dating back to the early days of rock 'n' roll with DJs like Allen Freed - long before Stern launched his first "Lesbian Dial-A-Date."

On their show Tuesday morning, which airs on both satellite and terrestrial radio, Opie and Anthony were offering their support for Imus - but also joking about taking over his slot should the veteran broadcaster get the ax.

Unless, of course, the pair gets fired first.

© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy.

[Rooster_Ties]

"Radio is where the hippest, most spontaneous pop culture exists..."

In this age of "anything-goes" on-line, with Youtube and Myspace --- yeah, yeah, right, sure --- "RADIO is where the is where the hippest, most spontaneous pop culture exists..."

In their dreams -- in their fuckin' dreams.

[Rooster_Ties]

Speaking of this topic, there's this from today's NY Times...

Op-Ed Contributor

Trash Talk Radio

By GWEN IFILL

Published: April 10, 2007

Washington

LET’S say a word about the girls. The young women with the musical names. Kia and Epiphanny and Matee and Essence. Katie and Dee Dee and Rashidat and Myia and Brittany and Heather.

The Scarlet Knights of Rutgers University had an improbable season, dropping four of their first seven games, yet ending up in the N.C.A.A. women’s basketball championship game. None of them were seniors. Five were freshmen.

In the end, they were stopped only by Tennessee’s Lady Vols, who clinched their seventh national championship by ending Rutgers’ Cinderella run last week, 59-46. That’s the kind of story we love, right? A bunch of teenagers from Newark, Cincinnati, Brooklyn and, yes, Ogden, Utah, defying expectations. It’s what explodes so many March Madness office pools.

But not, apparently, for the girls. For all their grit, hard work and courage, the Rutgers girls got branded “nappy-headed ho’s” — a shockingly concise sexual and racial insult, tossed out in a volley of male camaraderie by a group of amused, middle-aged white men. The “joke” — as delivered and later recanted — by the radio and television personality Don Imus failed one big test: it was not funny.

The serial apologies of Mr. Imus, who was suspended yesterday by both NBC News and CBS Radio for his remarks, have failed another test. The sincerity seems forced and suspect because he’s done some version of this several times before.

I know, because he apparently did it to me.

I was covering the White House for this newspaper in 1993, when Mr. Imus’s producer began calling to invite me on his radio program. I didn’t return his calls. I had my hands plenty full covering Bill Clinton.

Soon enough, the phone calls stopped. Then quizzical colleagues began asking me why Don Imus seemed to have a problem with me. I had no idea what they were talking about because I never listened to the program.

It was not until five years later, when Mr. Imus and I were both working under the NBC News umbrella — his show was being simulcast on MSNBC; I was a Capitol Hill correspondent for the network — that I discovered why people were asking those questions. It took Lars-Erik Nelson, a columnist for The New York Daily News, to finally explain what no one else had wanted to repeat.

“Isn’t The (New York) Times wonderful,” Mr. Nelson quoted Mr. Imus as saying on the radio. “It lets the cleaning lady cover the White House.”

I was taken aback but not outraged. I’d certainly been called worse and indeed jumped at the chance to use the old insult to explain to my NBC bosses why I did not want to appear on the Imus show.

I haven’t talked about this much. I’m a big girl. I have a platform. I have a voice. I’ve been working in journalism long enough that there is little danger that a radio D.J.’s juvenile slap will define or scar me. Yesterday, he began telling people he never actually called me a cleaning lady. Whatever. This is not about me.

It is about the Rutgers Scarlet Knights. That game had to be the biggest moment of their lives, and the outcome the biggest disappointment. They are not old enough, or established enough, to have built up the sort of carapace many women I know — black women in particular — develop to guard themselves against casual insult.

Why do my journalistic colleagues appear on Mr. Imus’s program? That’s for them to defend, and others to argue about. I certainly don’t know any black journalists who will. To his credit, Mr. Imus told the Rev. Al Sharpton yesterday he realizes that, this time, he went way too far.

Yes, he did. Every time a young black girl shyly approaches me for an autograph or writes or calls or stops me on the street to ask how she can become a journalist, I feel an enormous responsibility. It’s more than simply being a role model. I know I have to be a voice for them as well.

So here’s what this voice has to say for people who cannot grasp the notion of picking on people their own size: This country will only flourish once we consistently learn to applaud and encourage the young people who have to work harder just to achieve balance on the unequal playing field.

Let’s see if we can manage to build them up and reward them, rather than opting for the cheapest, easiest, most despicable shots.

Gwen Ifill is a senior correspondent for “The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer” and the moderator of “Washington Week.”

Edited April 11, 2007 by Rooster_Ties

[alocispepraluger102]

Speaking of this topic, there's this from today's NY Times...

Op-Ed Contributor

Trash Talk Radio

By GWEN IFILL

Published: April 10, 2007

Washington

LET’S say a word about the girls. The young women with the musical names. Kia and Epiphanny and Matee and Essence. Katie and Dee Dee and Rashidat and Myia and Brittany and Heather.

The Scarlet Knights of Rutgers University had an improbable season, dropping four of their first

seven games, yet ending up in the N.C.A.A. women’s basketball championship game. None of them were seniors. Five were freshmen.

In the end, they were stopped only by Tennessee’s Lady Vols, who clinched their seventh national championship by ending Rutgers’ Cinderella run last week, 59-46. That’s the kind of story we love, right? A bunch of teenagers from Newark, Cincinnati, Brooklyn and, yes, Ogden, Utah, defying expectations. It’s what explodes so many March Madness office pools.

But not, apparently, for the girls. For all their grit, hard work and courage, the Rutgers girls got branded “nappy-headed ho’s” — a shockingly concise sexual and racial insult, tossed out in a volley of male camaraderie by a group of amused, middle-aged white men. The “joke” — as delivered and later recanted — by the radio and television personality Don Imus failed one big test: it was not funny.

The serial apologies of Mr. Imus, who was suspended yesterday by both NBC News and CBS Radio for his remarks, have failed another test. The sincerity seems forced and suspect because he’s done some version of this several times before.

I know, because he apparently did it to me.

I was covering the White House for this newspaper in 1993, when Mr. Imus’s producer began calling to invite me on his radio program. I didn’t return his calls. I had my hands plenty full covering Bill Clinton.

Soon enough, the phone calls stopped. Then quizzical colleagues began asking me why Don Imus seemed to have a problem with me. I had no idea what they were talking about because I never listened to the program.

It was not until five years later, when Mr. Imus and I were both working under the NBC News umbrella — his show was being simulcast on MSNBC; I was a Capitol Hill correspondent for the network — that I discovered why people were asking those questions. It took Lars-Erik Nelson, a columnist for The New York Daily News, to finally explain what no one else had wanted to repeat.

“Isn’t The (New York) Times wonderful,” Mr. Nelson quoted Mr. Imus as saying on the radio. “It lets the cleaning lady cover the White House.”

I was taken aback but not outraged. I’d certainly been called worse and indeed jumped at the chance to use the old insult to explain to my NBC bosses why I did not want to appear on the Imus show.

I haven’t talked about this much. I’m a big girl. I have a platform. I have a voice. I’ve been working in journalism long enough that there is little danger that a radio D.J.’s juvenile slap will define or scar me. Yesterday, he began telling people he never actually called me a cleaning lady. Whatever. This is not about me.

It is about the Rutgers Scarlet Knights. That game had to be the biggest moment of their lives, and the outcome the biggest disappointment. They are not old enough, or established enough, to have built up the sort of carapace many women I know — black women in particular — develop to guard themselves against casual insult.

Why do my journalistic colleagues appear on Mr. Imus’s program? That’s for them to defend, and others to argue about. I certainly don’t know any black journalists who will. To his credit, Mr. Imus told the Rev. Al Sharpton yesterday he realizes that, this time, he went way too far.

Yes, he did. Every time a young black girl shyly approaches me for an autograph or writes or calls or stops me on the street to ask how she can become a journalist, I feel an enormous responsibility. It’s more than simply being a role model. I know I have to be a voice for them as well.

So here’s what this voice has to say for people who cannot grasp the notion of picking on people their own size: This country will only flourish once we consistently learn to applaud and encourage the young people who have to work harder just to achieve balance on the unequal playing field.

Let’s see if we can manage to build them up and reward them, rather than opting for the cheapest, easiest, most despicable shots.

Gwen Ifill is a senior correspondent for “The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer” and the moderator of “Washington Week.”

thanks.

i didnt expect to read that here.

one of the young ladies is a musical prodigy, i hear, and most of us have daughters and grand-daughters.

Edited April 11, 2007 by alocispepraluger102