“Hmmm… I guess ‘naughty bits’ is out too, huh?”
This is why people should care when the FCC goes off half-cocked. It’s not the single action itself, but the fear of censorship that takes hold thereafter.
A public radio station in Kentucky has reversed its decision to cancel Garrison Keillor’s “The Writer’s Almanac” over concerns about offensive content, after what station officials said was an outpouring of support.
WUKY-FM, a public radio station based in Lexington, canceled the show in early August. The daily spot runs a few minutes and features Keillor noting important milestones in writing history, after which he typically reads a poem.
Recent poems had included words like “breast” and the term “get high.” Another included suggestive sexual content, according to WUKY general manager Tom Goddell.
He said there were no listener complaints, but that station officials were worried about recent moves by the FCC to crack down on language it considered obscene.
The decision was reversed when a flood of complaints inundated the radio station– which is also the way you fight this nonsense. I don’t blame the radio station so much as the FCC, but it still bothers me that we have become a nation of weenies.
I did enjoy Keillor’s own thoughts on the entire episode:
“It’s an honor to be taken off the air. I had to wait until I was 63. You are nobody in radio until you’ve been fired at least once, and I’ve never been fired. At least it’s vindication.”
Related Story: The Original Report of the Cancellation
As much as I enjoy Keillor and his programming… he does have one of the scariest faces! Little children wouldn’t listen to him if he wasn’t on radio; but then again – I used to be on radio too!
I do think all the hub-a-bu-loo is too much. If the station had pulled it because it wanted to, or because of artistic decisions – who cares! Listen to it on the net!
Who cares what radio stations are doing these days? Probably the people at NPR who except for a select few (the national names notably) wouldn’t have jobs in broadcasting without public funding.
As much as I enjoy Keillor and his programming… he does have one of the scariest faces! Little children wouldn’t listen to him if he wasn’t on radio; but then again – I used to be on radio too!
I do think all the hub-a-bu-loo is too much. If the station had pulled it because it wanted to, or because of artistic decisions – who cares! Listen to it on the net!
Who cares what radio stations are doing these days? Probably the people at NPR who except for a select few (the national names notably) wouldn’t have jobs in broadcasting without public funding.
“…Keillor noting important milestones in writing history, after which he typically reads a poem…”
Ah yes, we’ve finally started to crackdown on the scurge of society – writers and poetry.
This is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard. You can tune into Tom Lykus any day you like and hear him talking about how women are bitches but we’re concerned about the word “breast”. Yes, that’s right, as a woman I far prefer being labelled a “ho” rather than someone talking about my breast. True, in this case stupidity didn’t win, but clearly it was close.
I worry about your country. Free speach really is being lost. (Exibit A: “Free Speach Zones” I thought your whole country was supposed to be one.)
You know he is one unattractive guy. Smart, but unattractive.
Sorry, I have to disaggree with you on this one. Typically, PBS stations tend to be a little less conservative than other stations. They no doubt reacted extremely in this case to make a point. I have seen many teachers who hate standards based teaching so much that they intentionally dumb down their lessons to “prove” how bad requiring results is.
George Carlin once said he hoped the event that wipes out the human race would occur in his lifetime and far to the East. That way he could watch on CNN as it traveled around the world towards him.
My guess that this was just a stunt to make the Right leaning FCC look bad.
In a way, it is good to have incidents like this.
Reading about the dangers of “prior restraint” being discussed in Supreme Court hearings takes on a whole new perspective when you have a real-world example.
Garrison Keillor is the last person in the world that I would accuse of being offensive or controversial. He has a radio show sponsered by powdermilk biscuits and the ketchup advisory board.
Dave C, are you kidding? The ketchup advisory board is pure evil. Kids LOVE ketchup. They also love rap music, violent video games, and instant messaging. And we all know how evil those are. Ketchup should be wiped off the face of the earth. And I’m shocked that public radio would associate with such evil.
I actually live about a mile from WUKY and listen to it every day. The thing that amazes me is that they tend to be a pretty liberal station. They also have massive support from the community. I would venture to say that they are one of the top five radio stations in town. When this whole thing was announced, it was a huge deal all over town. I don’t get out of the house much (working from home…trying to save some cash by not using a lot of gas), so I didn’t hear about it until it was pretty much over. They ran an interview during Morning Edition a few days ago explaining the whole thing. From the tone of the guy’s voice, it almost seemed like you could tell he was trying to push the issue of how the FCC is taking stuff way too seriously. Maybe I’m reading too much into this, but who knows. I will say they did change the time the show runs from around 8:00 or 9:00 AM to 7:01 PM (they’ve had lots of promos saying this). I love that they are still trying to get their point across by moving it closer to “Safe Harbor.” Again, that’s just my take on it.
And that’s the news from Lexington, Kentucky…where the women are strong, the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.