US decency campaign homes in on new target: radio knitting show

[T_i_B]

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=503388

So this is what the cutting edge of free speech looks like. The scene is an eccentric Los Angeles hotel with fusion Mexican/Moroccan décor and waitresses in fez hats. We know we're not in Kansas any more.

The event is a celebration of a local comedian called Sandra Tsing Loh, who has become the latest cause célèbre in America's increasingly bizarre broadcasting decency wars. After the scandal of Janet Jackson's momentary breast-baring at the Superbowl in January and the zingers thrown at the shock-jock Howard Stern, it seems downright eccentric to be recognising a 42-year-old suburban mother as the latest victim of the Bush administration's crackdown on the airwaves.

A few weeks ago, disaster struck. Ms Tsing Loh was in the middle of "a subtle but luminous five-part series on the joys of knitting" when a four-letter word she meant to have bleeped out went on air unchecked.

Station manager Ruth Seymour hit the roof, immediately firing Tsing Loh. With the Federal Communications Commission in a smut-hunting frenzy, Ms Seymour wanted to be seen by all to have taken retributive action. "There are some things in life you go to the wall for. The right to use indecent language on the radio is not one of them," she said. The listeners did not buy it. They flooded the station with threats to cancel their subscriptions if Ms Tsing Loh was not reinstated.

[tlcandie]

1. Oopsie!

This is the most childish thing I've ever seen! You would think that there are more important things to do in this world than sit around policing people's speech, no?

[freeforall]

2. LOL! And on a Knitting show!

Bet they'll catch hell from all the crafters. Jeez! She probably just dropped a stitch or something and cursed. (I'm a knitter and I do that.)

:wtf:

[Andy_Stephenson]

14. Knit one pearl....

Shit! I dropped another stitch.

:evilgrin:

[Retrograde]

20. &*)*% stupid stiches

what's odd about this" *You* drop a stitch after 483 rows and I'd like to hear what you say.

linda
quilter, occasional knitter, fiber artist

[baldguy]

13. "Childish" is precisely what it is!

Just picture an army of anal-retentive Puritan geeks monitoring everyone's speech to forbid the utterance of "forbidden" words.

[BiggJawn]

3. Now that the FCC is going after "Profane" speech...

In Websters, Profane is defined as:

1. Marked by contempt or irreverence for what is sacred.
2. Nonreligious in subject matter, form, or use; secular: sacred and profane music.
3. Not admitted into a body of secret knowledge or ritual; uninitiated.
4. Vulgar; coarse.

Contempt for what is "sacred"...So, when is some Benny Hinn worshipper gonna to file a complaint against a PBS station for running "Cosmos", because Carl Sagan wasn't "saved" and didn't hide it.

"Non-religious in form"...Did Sandra say "I give thanks to Aw-mitey GAWD, who works through my fingers..." Hey, maybe she should have, then it would have been GAWD's fault that she dropped a stitch...

If somebody says "I don't know what goes on in "The Tomb" I'm not in Skull and Bones.." That's "Profane", too.

Well, that leaves us with "Vulgar" and "Coarse"....And that's worth $500,000?

Seymour did EXACTLY what the FCC wanted her to do. Silence somebody who might say "the wrong thing". They reason that if you can say "Fuck" on the radio, it's just a small jump to "Bush is an Idiot, and Cheney is a Criminal"....

[DBoon]

4. Sandra Tsing Loh is an awesome comic

Was one of my favorite shows on KCRW.

Her firing was done in an extremely cold-blooded fashion. She was thrown out the door and all traces of her show were removed from the audio Web site archive without any explanation. None of the staff spoke to her on her way out - no goobyes.

She was offered her job back and turned it down. Didn't want to work in such a toxic environment. I am looking forward to hearing her show on a different station.

Interesting how blue-nosed government censors work so well with autocratic private sector manangement.

[waywest]

15. I'm looking forward to an alternative station...

Air America network!!!

No more A.D.M plugs etc.

[Tuttle]

5. Anyone catch Jon Stewart's flub?

A couple of weeks ago, Jon Stewart make an on-air verbal 'wardrobe malfunction' that was not bleeped -- funny thing is, the following week, he began a show by apologizing and saying that "when two grownups love each other, very much..." and then he said the show had not heard a peep about it!

Tut-tut

[mouse7]

12. Cable isn't "on-air." Standard is much different.

Same standard that applies to porn applies to cable TV. They can pretty much do almost anything they want.

[The Zanti Regent]

6. Dennis Miller said the same word to Eric Alterman and he's not fired!

I wonder why Miler is still whoring, er, working at CNBC?

Could it be because of the color of his skin???????

[leesa]

7. What nonsense. Yet the big-time movies produced by corporatists

have wall-to-wall four letter words. I don't care, I just don't watch them, but the hypocrisy is astounding.

[koopie57]

8. I wonder how many

four letter words Seymour used in firing Ms Tsing Loh

[electricmonk]

9. This is how ridiculous it is under bush*

A friend of mine works for a PBS station and plays in a rock band in his spare time. When he is performing he and his band can't use any of the "dirty words" because of a morality clause in his contract. He's not even an on air guy, just a technician. He said the clause was implemented during Bush 1, ignored during Clinton and came back with a vengence with dumbass. He said within a matter of days of inauguration a memo came down from DC about it.

[suegeo]

10. Can't upset the children with bad language

Knitting is very popular among 2nd and 3rd graders, and I'm sure that the station manager knew that the grade school crowd was the target audience of this knitting show.

And so, one mustn't use language that would upset the grade school crowd in programming that is targetted to them.

/end sarcasm

This shit is getting out of hand. If the junta means to put all programming at a level so that children can listen to it, then all we will have is children's programming.

Do they think we are all children? Are they that out of touch with reality?

[lolly]

11. More info

It actually wasn't a "knitting show." It's one of those Sunday-column, slice of life type things she called "The Loh Life." She just happened to be in the middle of a 5-part series on her knitting habit.

Anyway, she was talking about her husband playing in Bette Midler's backup band, and how sexy that made him seem to her. She said something like "I'm just gonna have to f++k him now!"

It was pre-recorded; the engineer was supposed to bleep it out for comic effect, but he forgot--twice (it aired at 7 and 9 am, I believe).

My understanding is that no one complained, but this harridan of a manager, Seymour, heard about it and immediately fired Loh, called her actions "self-serving and trivial" and left a message on her answering machine telling her she (Loh) needed to "get some help, please."

On edit: a link from a Salon.com interview with Loh:

http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2004/03/16/loh/index.html

[Rex]

16. I alway knew there was sumthin wrong with people who knit!

Swarthy people knit! I saw it in a Bush Ad!

[dw]

17. My 84-year-old mother is one of several women in her town...

who get together and crochet. They call themselves "The Hookers".

Good thing she already moved to Canada and renounced her US citizenship, because I fear Ashcroft would have thrown her in Gitmo.

The Republicans are killing humor and humanity.

[freeforall]

19. LOL dw

Yeah, we're allowed to knit and crochet with impunity up here.

[saigon68]

18. kick