In yet more proof that we are descending into a living version of The Handmaid’s Tale, a radio station at the University of Kentucky cancelled Writer’s Almanac, that nice daily tidbit, for using such gross obscenities as the word “breast.” Hello, UK SLIS: are you posting?
I know it’s fashionable in some circles to snub or at least gently mock Mr. Keillor. He’s not edgy enough, or something. Prairie Home Companion is too wholesome, and Keillor’s choice of poetry doesn’t make the blood race. Jeff Jarvis calls him “tapioca” (as if Entertainment Weekly were The Rambler); August Kleinzahler says that for his trespasses Keillor must be “burned.”
Yes, Keillor’s choices for the Writer’s Almanac may be broadly popular. But is the world worse off for learning, as I did today, that “For a long time, people in England called printed books Caxtons”? Is a little Dickinson going to prevent the next poetic revolution (and if it does, is it Keillor’s fault)?
Yes, I’m outing myself as a Keillor fan. I’ve been listening to Keillor’s voice for twenty years, and he has been a companion to my life and travels. I found Prairie Home Companion in a cornfield in Illinois, late one Saturday night in 1985. The skits were pleasantly silly, the “News” reminded me of people I knew, and Garrison’s deep voice tied everything together with a great big booming bow. After that, I waited for Keillor’s voice all week, every week. Saturday nights usually found me driving back from a concert at Krannert Center, and when his voice began rolling out of my car radio into the summer air, I felt home in a way I had not for many years as I headed toward the shack I lived in while the Air Force prepared me for my next job. For better or worse, his “treacly” voice, it comforts me.
But that’s the point: Keillor is so tame he requires I justify myself. If Keillor is deemed indecent (for a word routinely printed in grocery store flyers), we could all be in trouble. On the other hand, maybe the only thing that’s in trouble is traditional radio, thinking it can save itself through censorship when it will only drive more readers to the Web, where the Writer’s Almanac can be experienced both in text and audio whenever you want to listen to it, rather than presented once a day at 11 a.m. Presented, that is, until it is no longer presentable, and is yanked from the air by a station that prattles on its page, “This audio stream, just like our on-air signal, is made possible by the support of listeners like you! So, while you’re here, why not become a WUKY member?” Why not indeed support these fine champions of public broadcasting and free speech? After all, in addition to knowing you paid for that bright yellow website with the broken images and the prerequisite duplication of national news you could already hear on the Web or XM radio, every Friday you can listen to “UK Perspectives with President Lee Todd,” and it’s not too late to submit your favorite chicken chest recipe to the station’s contest.
Kentucky was my fourth choice for library school, but Illinois came through with a generous graduate assistantship. Six years after I first heard Keillor, after three stints overseas, I was back in the cornfields again. On many a Saturday night, while puzzling my way through reference-desk stumpers and Pascal programming code, I enjoyed the company of Keillor’s voice, the gales of audience laughter, and the foot-tapping, folksy music. NPR was so appreciated in that neck of the corn-fed woods that during pledge drives you could hear farmers calling in their pledges from tractors. I have always been proud to have attended Illinois, and right now, not having attended Kentucky is one more reason to revel in my jingoism.
Meanwhile, I wonder if this is part of the tipping point for public radio. Between podcasting, XM radio, and timid broadcasters, it’s possible radio may simply die.
(Garrison, where’s your feed? I suppose I could set up a Bloglines email-to-RSS subscription, but can someone please sit down and ‘splain RSS to the folks at American Public Media?)
Thanks to the Lexington Herald-Leader for publishing that article, and for BuzzMachine for cracking that vial of smelling salts under my nose this morning.
Posted on this day, other years:
- Dinah Does Dickinson - 2006
- On the Essay Collection - 2006
- Moving Along - 2006
- Metagrrl - 2004
- Six Apart Party - 2004
- Ted at Six Apart Party - 2004
- Class Photo (Pun Intended) - 2004
Um, I believe you meant “chicken bosoms?”
Women can be chesty… so can they have chests?
Apparently listeners like us (I love Prairie Home Companion!) have love for the Keillor too, because they’re bringing it back, albeit at 7pm instead of its former 11am spot. Story here:
http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/entertainment/12374053.htm
What a relief, though I think that station manager was way out of line deciding that the FCC would fine them for use of the word “breast.” It’s funny that they’re moving it to a far more accessible spot–I am nearly always in the kitchen listening to NPR at 7 (we dine late).
Ah, yes, Saturday nights in the 1980’s in library school listening to Prairie Home Companion. Too many memories of PHC and that time and place to even recount.
Hard to imagine how they survive there now that WILL runs PHC live at 3:00 PM!
–Cheryl, GSLIS M.S. ’83–
I graduated from University of Kentucky SLIS in 1996 and was a great fan of Prairie Home Companion. I’m saddend by the nearsightedness of WUKY which was my radiostation of choice in Lexington. SLIS at UK is a good school and should not suffer because there is stupidity in other quarters. Hopefully others will enjoy getting their library degrees both in Kentucky and Illinois regardless of local public radio station policies.
As both a graduate of UK’s SLIS and a former listener of WUKY (I’ve since moved out of state), I’m kind of taken aback by your tone, but at the same time, I can’t fault you.
First off, the SLIS leadership is ancient and sluggish. I doubt they’ll be getting around to any sort of school blog anytime soon. I’ll grant you that Illinois is a better program. Heck, there are lots of better programs than the UK SLIS. I hope that you don’t hold that against us grads, though. For me, it was just about getting that piece of paper. I’m a much better librarian for who I am, not for the education I received.
Second, WUKY is the best thing going for radio in the area, except perhaps for WRFL, but they don’t have the broadcasting range. Kentucky is a conservative state with an über conservative governor at the moment. A number of conservative Christian radio networks have been taking over the public radio frequencies, so that can be a concern if the station were to get into trouble. Also, they need to move their tower and are seeking funding for that. The station manager is relatively new to the station and probably is very concerned about rocking the boat. I know a lot of the folks that work at WUKY, and they are open-minded and intelligent people. I don’t think this decision was made lightly.
A radio station pulls Keillor for using phrases like “breast” and “get high” (shades of Ed Sullivan trying to censor The Doors), and the newspaper covering this story says “the poems Keillor read were too risky for airplay.”
Risky? Either Garrison’s selections were a bad gamble of some sort, or the language issues in Kentucky media run deeper than being embarrassed by “breast.”
Harrumph.
The problem is not the library school; the problem is living in a region where the local radio station blocks Keillor, for heaven’s sake, effectively censoring the local airwaves. If WUKY is the best radio programming Lexington has to offer, then I repeat my statement–I’m glad I didn’t go there. I would hate to think I had to spend a year in Radio-Free Kentucky in order to get a library degree. (Did the library students say anything about this issue, which has been brewing for a bit?)
(I actually had similar issues in Santa Cruz and upstate NY, where the local public radio stations didn’t meet my needs, and the problem was hardly censorship, just station programming I didn’t care for.)
It’s also very disturbing that these open-minded and intelligent people at the radio station wimped out over something as mild as the word “breast.” If that’s just the way things are, once again–I’m glad I didn’t go there.
Kudos, again, to the reporter covering this issue.
These days, with the Internet and XM radio, the local public radio station cannot really function as the local airwave censor (which was not true in the dark ages, when I had to ride a Brontosaurus to school and we carved our homework into cave walls). But think about what that says about public radio.
My mom ’bout had a cow when she read “chicken boobs” on my shopping list 🙂
I, too, am a PHC junkie — in my area I get a replay on Sunday morning. Twice the fun.
We get that replay as well. I cannot tell you how many essays I have revised while chuckling through the News. I think he’s a good influence, meself.
Have you read the follow-up? “The FCC says any potential complaint has to be measured against community standards,” Godell said. “I’ve now learned what Central Kentucky’s standards are. I have ammunition if we were ever faced with a complaint.”
I’m a tad sensitive to anything that smacks of looking down on Kentuckians as less than civilized.
His comments didn’t pass muster with me. He greatly overreacted to very mild language. You also don’t test the intellectual freedom environment by censoring information and then hoping someone asks to have it reinstated.
Just to reinforce what some others have said–I don’t really get the connection you appear to be making between the local radio station and UK’s School of Library and Information Science. Last time I checked (and since I am currently a student in that program), SLIS had no connection to nor influence on the radio station. Perhaps you are confusing us with our larger organization, the College of Communication and Information Studies, that does include the sub-discipline of journalism. Whether or not it runs the radio station, I do not know. I commute and I tend to listen to WEKU/NPR, not the UK stations. Besides, um…I think your connection to A Handmaid’s Tale is a little far-fetched. When they make us all wear color-coded burquas and start knocking off the atheists and agnostics–maybe.
By the way, UK’s SLIS does have a blog (http://www.uklisso.blogspot.com/)–at least the LISSO (LIS Student Organization) does. It’s not much of blog though–it’s more of a message board with links to additional resources. But considering the minimal size of the program and the relatively small number of students in the program I think we’re doing pretty good. Especially since so many students commute from as far as Berea, Louisville, and Cincinatti. I’m sorry our program isn’t as “snazzy” and as “forward” as you’d like–what can you do when you’re in a university who gives resources to programs that bring money in (i.e. research $$–you know, biochemistry, etc.) and not the more esoteric and obscure non-money makers such as library science?
Oh, and by the way, I grew up in the rural midwest. Not all farmers on tractors are as broad-minded as your utopic dream of Illinois. Our town voted down funds for the library because they wanted to open on Sunday. There are broad and closed-minded people everywhere. I think you maybe just outed one of your own prejudices?