A Culture of Fear-
Even in Public Radio
A link thanks to Jeff Jarvis at BuzzMachine reminds us of what the FCC has managed to do over the past few years.

WUKY cancels radio program over offensive content
By Jamie Gumbrecht
HERALD-LEADER CULTURE WRITER

A few weeks after The Boston Globe called The Writer’s Almanac radio program “a confection of poetry and history wrapped in the down comforter voice of producer and host Garrison Keillor,” WUKY-91.3 FM canceled the daily featurette for offensive content.

The five-minute segments aired on the University of Kentucky’s public radio station at 11 a.m. until Aug. 1. It opened with soft piano music and the voice of A Prairie Home Companion’s Keillor remembering major moments in writing history. It was a break for history between news broadcasts and pop music, each day ending with a poem and the wish to “be well, do good work and keep in touch.”

But in a time of Federal Communications Commission crackdowns on radio content, WUKY officials say, the poems Keillor read were too risky for airplay.

“I don’t question the artistic merit, but I have to question the language,” WUKY General Manager Tom Godell said. “It’s not that he’s behaving like Howard Stern, but the FCC has been so inconsistent, we don’t know where we stand. We could no longer risk a fine.”

Reaction to the cancellation has been minimal so far, Godell said. WUKY managers decided to stop carrying the Almanac after a recent spate of language advisories, although they were tracking the content for about a year, Godell said.

The warnings, issued by the program’s production company, came about Curse of the Cat Woman by Edward Field, which contained violent themes and the word “breast”; Thinking About the Past by Donald Justice, which also used the word “breast”; and Reunion by Amber Coverdale, which contained the phrase “get high.” The poems were scheduled for broadcast between July 23 and Aug. 12.

WUKY never heard complaints about The Writer’s Almanac because the station always edited potentially offensive language, Godell said. Prairie Home Productions and American Public Media, the segment’s producer and distributor, do not edit or select the content.
--Lexington Herald-Leader

There is a culture of at least uncertainty, if not fear, among some broadcasters today. No one knows who's listening and who's going to complain about who know what. Keillor made this comment in response:

The fact that someone is troubled by hearing the word "breast" is interesting, but what are we supposed to do with A Visit From St. Nicholas and the "breast of the new fallen snow"? Should it become a shoulder or an elbow? I don't think so.

The pendulum swings, I know that. But when quality is subsumed to some unknown standard of "decency" that makes no sense, the pendulum is swinging in the wrong places.