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Free Speech Versus Political Correctness:
Land of the Free, Home of the
Browbeaten
by Lauren Davis
Recently,
poplar local radio personality and WHNN morning host
Johnny Burke was blasted for a stunt he pulled on line and on
the air regarding the Flint Public Schools. It would appear
that Mr. Burk did a few parodies and placed a mock assessment online
that got some people's dander up.
Naturally, when the proverbial
"matter" hit the machine, I was asked by my editor to contact John,
a friend, and get some comments. For those of you who don't know, I
spent nearly 2 decades in the business and worked with Johnny for a
number of years. I now work in multimedia, which includes online
radio.
While the press ballyhooed all over
the place looking for any scrap of inside information, I didn't feel
the need to make a single call. Because I know what's up. I knew
what was up with Don Imus, and "Mancow" Meuller, and
all the other radio personalities who have gone out of the frying
pan and into the fire in recent radio history.
This is nothing new. It's part of the
job.
It might surprise people to know that
radio is really not a very easy gig. With all due respect to those
of you who do very hard physical labor: construction, excavation,
nursing, etc. al., I feel the need to point out this fundamental
fact. Too often, listener perception of his/her favorite jock is
that he/she sits around, burning incense under a black light,
waiting to put on the next song like Venus Flytrap on WKRP. That's
just not the way it works.
It really works like this:
While the music is playing, your
favorite personality is doing an interview off the air, taking a
remote feed from a co-worker "on location at Joe's Cars" ("free pop,
popcorn, and balloons for the kids!!!"), and he's getting an earful
from a sales guy who really wants to please a client, but doesn't
want to check with the jock to see if he has the time to appear at
another "brilliant" promotion.
If the personality in question has
the kind boss that I did when I was in it, he is going to win the
daily lottery and get a brief and pointless visit from the General
Manager, who is a master in the art of patting the jock on the back
and slapping him in the face in the same, swift movement.
Said General Manager will recommend a
stunt or feature that has likely already been in practice for three
years, and, when the three point five minutes of slumming are done,
can be seen slinking quickly back to the office to cross "take time
with the morons" off his to-do list.
In the real radio world, the average
regular radio personality logs anywhere from fifty to seventy hours
a week, sometimes more, including weekends and holidays.
Since they are paid on salary, this does not bump up their salary,
and it does not engender them any more greatly to the boss: it is
merely an expectation.
You see, aside from spinning tunes
(which is now done by computer), a radio personality of today is a
savvy marketer, and effective promoter, and a skilled politician.
He's got to wrangle his way around the expectations of his program
director, his management, his public and his general community. An
effective radio personality is always "On", no matter what.
After the show, each personality has
a million other duties that he/she has to squeeze in between what
can sometimes be dozens of personal appearance each week. This can
be anything from writing and cutting radio spots, dubbing
pre-recorded spots into the system, music scheduling, promotional
planning, and show-prep. Corporate management loves meetings,
even if they don't accomplish anything substantive. So you can add
that to the schedule too.
Since radio has gone to automation,
which is supposed to make things easier on the jock, the amount of
employees who actually make the station tick has been cut in half.
It may surprise the general public to know that the average is
station in our market, discounting the sales staff, is run by a
handful of guys and gals who have been schooled in the world of
"multitasking". It's a no win situation. Push your self past
exhaustion and show the boss that you can accomplish something, and
it will add another title to your bulging job classification.
Take WKQZ's Joe Volk, for
example. While I'm not a fan, I have to say I respect the fact that
he proves that radio is a test of endurance. Joe not only co-hosts
Z's "Joe and the Poorboy", he works sales too. So he comes in at
4:30 in the morning, does his show, works with his other
multitasking partner on building the next day's show, and he's off
to do sales calls until the late evening. He is also expected to do
appearances, which can mean another 2-4 hours each. Joe has a wife
and two boys at home, who are lucky to see him half as much as his
fans and clients do. He's tired. We're all tired.
Tragically, a program director from a
radio station in Flint recently died of a heart attack at an airport
while waiting to go to a business conference. He was very young, and
a very dedicated broadcaster with a wife and children. Everyone
shook their heads and wondered how it could happen. Those of us who
have been there, well, they know.
Radio is not an easy job.
The Meat of the Matter  SoŠ going back to Johnny Burke, and a stunt that ruffled some feathers. I didn't call Johnny because, in light of the fact that we're friends, it would have been improper. Besides, even if I had the limited level of propriety it takes to make that kind of call; Johnny would have been well gagged by Citadel Broadcasting's legal department.
So I'm going to say what he can't.
On the air, you are expected
to be compelling. This means that no matter what is going on off
the air, or who you are off the air, you have to create a
perception in the listener's mind. Johnny, a master at
self-promotion and a tremendously talented broadcaster, has played
this game for a number of years, and he's done it well.
Try this yourself: write material for
one show. Just ONE. See if you can make your friends and family
laugh with it. Now try doing it 5-6 days a week, for nearly 30
years. Come up with fresh material, be topical, and do something
that is going to generate "water cooler chatter". Go on now. Get it
done! The lesson here is how much time you can devote to each bit.
If you actually try this, you will find it nearly impossible to give
any one thing a great deal of your time.
This thing about being "compelling"
is what the General Manager walks into the Jocks' studios to talk
about. When my station banned The Who after Pete Townsend
admitted to surfing the web for child pornography, ostensibly for
research with his pre-pubescent son, our reaction was a carefully
choreographed maneuver that we knew would cause flack. It was done
with the full knowledge and consent of our superiors. And once the
Who Fan Club got hold of us, it got pretty ugly.
Former General Manager Scott Meier
pulled me into his office and said, "It doesn't matter what they say
about youŠas long as they are talking".
So while there are still a few jocks
that go off and do their own thing, the truth is that a personality
who takes chances and does something controversial has a reasonable
expectation that if it's expected of him, he should have the
full support of his company when things blow up.
Nobody should be surprised that this
is exactly what happened.
Don't get me wrong. I am not making excuses for Johnny Burke. It's just that he doesn't need any. Was the posting on his website, and any relevant bit over the line? I can't speak to that. I didn't see the bit. But I can assure you that he didn't take the time to plot and scheme a way to best offend the Flint School District. He didn't have the time.
Was it in poor taste?
Maybe. But in my experience, it's
all frustrating. As a radio personality, it is your job to
follow current events and know what your community is doing.
Flint Public Schools may have taken offense to the statements,
and they may be have some valid points: but I believe that
there is a lot going on with stones and glass houses here.
I think when they can point to safe
schools and educated children, when they can show well handled
finances and teachers who, in the majority, do more than "mail it
in".... when they can claim their schools are reasonably drug free
and their juvenile crime rates are next to nothing, they may
have a case.
Otherwise, I think they are just
finding that life in the spotlight is a little uncomfortable. Sure,
it could have been a bit about Frankenmuth, Midland Schools, or any
other school system in America. Perhaps Burke chose Flint not
because of the demographics of the Flint population, but because
this particular school district is just a shining example of what
NOT to do.
Knowing Johnny Burke
personally, I think it fair to say that when he runs a bit like
this, he is just expressing a frustration that all of us feel when
any attempts at reasonable discourse and calls to action have
failed.
Flint has been a community in a
quagmire of selfishness, poverty, corruption, apathy, and crime.
Burke painted a picture of that using humor and irony. Perhaps he
could have done so more tastefully. But that would have been
disingenuous. It's not what his listeners (or sponsors) sign on for.
It's not what his bosses expect. And it doesn't get anybody
thinking.
Truth Doesn't Equivocate Johnny Burke has picked on everyone with equanimityŠincluding himself. It just doesn't get noticed.
In all, the constant and ridiculous
barrage of the Political Correctness Nazis has taken the
fundamental right of our constitution to task: that is, the right to
free speech.
While I have no desire to get on a
soapbox over this issue, I think it is worth pointing out that it's
not so much someone speaking out against Johnny Burke running a bit
that offends Flint Public Schools that I find interesting. It's the
hypocrisy that it takes for that school district to point a finger
at him and to try to deflect the truth in it by accusing Burke of
attacking their kids.
They are missing the pointŠmuch as they have for decades.
The school district has let its
kids down. That was Johnny's point. That is the focus. And as a
guy who has dedicated years to the Johnny Burke Children's
Foundation, someone who I have seen agonize over some of the
letters he gets telling him about children, of all demographics, who
need help, Johnny Burke called the people responsible for the
children in that district to task.
Our constitution afforded him that right, he exercised it, and he got nailed for it. One might say that Flint Public Schools exercised that right too, in protest. Fair enough. If I were Burke, I would send them a giant thank you card and a dozen roses for the noise they've made on this issue.
Because now, people are talking.
In my time in radio, I have worked
closely with people who have put their lives on the line in Iraq.
These bright, motivated, and talented people take criticism over the
war with a grain of salt, saying "I may not agree with what you have
to say about the war: but I will fight and die defending your right
to say it."
That is a powerful testament to the
value of the freedom to speak in the good old U-S-of-A.
I agree there have to be certain rules of propriety in the game of broadcasting. As public figures, we all have a responsibility to our communities. But there seems to be a definitive selectiveness at work in this particular "PC" agenda. There is hypocrisy.
Perhaps, if they were truly
interested in the welfare of their children, Flint Public Schools
could have sent the same dozen roses to Johnny, with a note saying:
"It was a really lousy way of
doing it, but thanks for pointing out what we're up against".
They could have made the same statements to the press, taking that opportunity to point to the fact that they were struggling against many issues. They could have used that opportunity to call out for help.
Instead, they chose to use the media
to deflect the spotlight from the real issues.
If that isn't sad, I don't know what is.
Don Imus and his callous
comments about a female basketball team were racially motivated and
out of line. He got called on it, and he had it coming. Mancow's
irreverent stunts have pushed the line many times. But the point of
free speech, specifically on the radio, is that free listening
applies too:
You don't have to subject yourself to
it.
Every radio comes with an off button,
every website comes with a navigator bar, and every newspaper can be
folded and thrown in the trash.
If you choose to hear the message,
you are exercising your first amendment right, which includes many
options; not the least of which... is to think.
Had Flint Public Schools done that
before they shot off a heated retort, they might have gotten help
for the kids they so vehemently defended.
As it stands, what they have is
public attention on what they aren't doing.
While it might be easy to doŠyou
can't blame Burke for that.
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