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Speaker 0 00:00:00 Like a lot of newsrooms, w Nur news uses slack On a busy day. I might get 50 or a hundred slack notifications. We use the app to schedule meetings, make announcements, answer questions from reporters and all the other logistics that go on between meetings by far, my favorite kind of slack vacation is the, can I say this message on the radio strictly censored music and NPR hosts probably make us subconsciously aware that our news packages can't contain
Speaker 1 00:00:35 Or,
Speaker 0 00:00:36 Or a lot of the other fun, four letter words, But expletives exist on a beautiful spectrum from stupid to Cox and at a student run radio news show. We rely on other students to decide what gets bleached PR chair, Zach McCreary, April 13th. Can I say horny in a story? Co-director Nick's song. Yeah. You good campus? Local editor, Maria Jima Aragon. October 15th. Can we say Zach? No. On October 4th, I asked the slack. Can we say jerk off on air? Nick ver no noun. Nick, you should be good. I don't remember what that story was about. And until now, I don't think I've said jerk off on air with varying degrees of confidence. We spare each other. The burden of making that final call. I've been executive producer here it for about a year, and I still don't feel confident in answering What can't I say on the air. I considered interviewing the actual adults who advise our college radio station, but I was a little scared. They wouldn't like the story. Maybe even politely tell me not to do it for fear of our FCC overlords. So I went to
Speaker 2 00:02:12 The news directors.
Speaker 3 00:02:14 My name is Nick song. I'm the co news director at w Nur news.
Speaker 4 00:02:19 So my name is Alex Harrison, and I'm a co-director at w Nur news.
Speaker 0 00:02:24 Nick and Alex are juniors life like me, but they're also my bosses.
Speaker 3 00:02:28 Oh, I guess. Sure. I, I guess I'm your boss, if you wanna put it that way. <laugh>
Speaker 0 00:02:31 So when a reporter asks me about a questionable word, I don't want that decision on my hands. I ask Nick or Alex,
Speaker 4 00:02:39 Uh, generally anything that would be considered profane or just too strong for, you know, evening television. If you couldn't say it on the nightly news, you can't say it on the radio.
Speaker 0 00:02:50 Nick and Alex have to get trained every year on what we can. And can't say on the air, like all of us at w anymore,
Speaker 5 00:02:57 There's a meeting with the club and people who want to DJ on air, where they learn about basically what is required to get certified by the FCC. My name is Brendan Kaplan, and I am a rock show DJ with w N R. We have to, as DJs fill out a is to make sure that we know what we can and can't do on air.
Speaker 0 00:03:22 Here's the thing about that training FCC guidelines are incredibly vague content that's judged as obscene can never be broadcast on American airwaves, obscene content quote, appeals to people's pur interest depicts or describes sexual conduct in a patently offensive way or lacks artistic merit. The FCC itself admits on its website that determining what obscene means can be difficult depending on who you talk to. That's also a quote. In other words, there's no list of things you can't say on the radio. At least not a complete list. Our FCC training includes seven NFA words, not for airplay management tells us that saying these words on the radio, in any of their forms could in theory, get the station find or its broadcast license revoked.
Speaker 3 00:04:28 Okay, well there's fuck.
Speaker 4 00:04:35 Damn it. There's one that I always forget,
Speaker 3 00:04:37 Bitch. Isn't in there. Wow. Okay.
Speaker 5 00:04:41 God. Um, okay, so that's five.
Speaker 3 00:04:45 Let me, let me, let me go back then. So definitely fuck. Can't say we cannot say it's definitely off limits. Uh, well that, well, that's one of them, but
Speaker 5 00:04:58 I don't know if you count mother, fuck. It's a separate one from, so I, I wouldn't count that let's go with and, um,
Speaker 3 00:05:07 We are allowed to stay, right? We are really wow,
Speaker 0 00:05:12 But this is a college radio station. Mistakes happen.
Speaker 5 00:05:16 If obscene content is set on air, there are two dump buttons in the w N R our studio.
Speaker 4 00:05:22 It's a big yellow button with the word dump on
Speaker 3 00:05:25 It. You can hope that you cash it in time. You hit dump and you're saved
Speaker 5 00:05:30 W N R runs on a 16 second delay. And so by hitting the dump button, you're cutting eight seconds out of that delay. And it's like, skipping ahead in the broadcast. Uh, it would sound like a jump cut if you're listening on air. And that is to ensure that the swear has been removed.
Speaker 3 00:05:49 I think I've used the dump button once. I think there was a package where I think someone accidentally said the S word in the background or what sounded like the S word. And I hated just in case, just because I did not want that smoke on my hand. Uh, this was before I was news director. So my limited club that I have, um, I did not have back then. So I was very much like I don't want get blackballed from this radio station. I just got caught at,
Speaker 5 00:06:17 I have had to hit it several times. Um, it happens a lot with songs on Spotify, where artists won't mark, whether or not they're explicit. And we do check lyrics beforehand if we have time, but we don't always have time. And so there are instances in which songs end up getting played on air, uh, where we start to scream and hit the dumb button, uh, and then lament our poor decision making.
Speaker 0 00:06:44 I was having second thoughts. Would listeners station management, or God forbid the FCC think of this story as poor decision making. I did what I always do. I asked Nick I'm a little nervous about the story. <laugh>
Speaker 9 00:07:04 Okay. Why's that?
Speaker 0 00:07:06 Because I, even though I'm not gonna say the words on the FCC list, I'm still considering saying everything else like pussy and Dick and goddamn, like that could still make, you know, grandmas clutch, their pearls.
Speaker 9 00:07:29 Um, I mean, you know, let them, I guess <laugh> the real secrets to all this radio stuff is really like the FCC doesn't have, they don't hire people to always be listening to what happens on the radio. Like as sensibly, they, they rely on people to like snitch on them. I guess,
Speaker 0 00:07:52 The way that they enforce it is by people complaining to them. And then they decide if it's obscene or profane or indecent the, so there, isn't a way to be totally in the clear about this. Like anybody can complain.
Speaker 9 00:08:13 I think that's true. And honestly, one of my biggest grips with the SCC personally, um, they don't specify any of this stuff. I think we can say the word pussy on its own. However, if I wanna say, I wanna have,
Speaker 8 00:08:29 <laugh>
Speaker 9 00:08:30 Probably leave that right there. Um, it it's all about to the line and I think as long as we're not explicitly being explicit, we're good.
Speaker 0 00:08:41 Okay. I okay.
Speaker 9 00:08:43 I, I feel like I haven't convinced you.
Speaker 0 00:08:45 No, no, because <laugh>, because here's the thing I can say pussy, as in capped all I want, but in a story about words that we can't say on the radio, the implication is that
Speaker 9 00:09:01 Sure. In the greater context of it, but in that specific context of the sentence, my brain is starting, which you should probably believe. Uh, I think I wish I had a better answer for you other than I don't think that we're gonna get in trouble. <laugh> if we do get in trouble, my is on the line. Um, I dunno if you know, is bleep there. If, uh, if shit happens, which we definitely have to bleep mm-hmm <affirmative>
Speaker 0 00:09:36 For w N R news. I'm Sarah Kora, unless the FCC is listening, then I'm Nick's song.
