Page 514 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

Shock Jocks: Mak ng Mayhem over the A rwaves |

if children are not part of the audience, the decision holds to this day. There
remains a window of opportunity for shocking language between the hours of
10 p.m. and 6 a.m., but, otherwise, none of the seven dirty words should pass the
lips of anyone heard over the air during the course of the rest of the day.

Can ThEy say ThaT?
The jumping-off point for the present-day profusion of shock jocks is hard to
isolate. Nonetheless, it remains clear that while the announcer on WBAI took
the words out of George Carlin’s mouth, these current performers do not achieve
any of their audacity secondhand. It is also important to stress how virtually all
of them emerged from more mainstream broadcasting as disc jockeys as well as
how much they acknowledge their debt to and the influence of on-air personali-
ties from the past, like Jean Shepherd. Some may as well have watched, or even
been fans of, two short-lived television figures who virtually broke through the
third wall of the screen, so vehement were their opinions: Joe Pyne and Alan
Burke. Pyne broadcast a syndicated show from Los Angeles from 1965 until his
untimely death from cancer in 1970; Burke appeared in New York City from
1966 to 1968 and turned to Miami-based radio during the 1970s and 1980s. It
may seem more than a bit of a leap from the “Shut up, creep!” of Pyne and Burke
to the outright obscenity of the current shock jocks, but a lineage between the
two certifiably exists.
Other legal and institutional factors contributed to the emergence of the
shock jocks. During the course of the Reagan administration, the FCC began to
lean less heavily on the regulatory throttle, in particular so far as station owner-
ship was concerned. More and more entities were brought up by broadcasting
conglomerates, such as Clear Channel, and owners sought formats that could
appeal across broad geographical and ideological segments of the population.
Sexual innuendo, frat-boy shenanigans, and spirited diatribes against one’s op-
ponents fit the bill. Also, the regulations regarding the need for all sides of an
issue to be publicly aired became trimmed, so that the aggressive defense of po-
lemical positions did not require any counterpointed alternative. The adoption
of the airwaves as a personal soapbox therefore acquired the sanction both of
the law and the corporate bottom line.
Don Imus unleashed his loose cannon on WNBC in New York City in 1971;
Howard Stern joined him there in 1982; Rush Limbaugh began his career in
1984 in Sacramento, California; Michael Savage unleashed his vitriol fist over
San Francisco’s KGO in 1994. While all four of them commonly stretch the
boundaries of taste and legally protected speech, each operates under his own
agenda. Stern, the “King of All Media,” aims to goose the adolescent mentality of
listeners any way he can; Imus oscillates between the outrageous and the ideo-
logical, maintaining a need both to crack a crude joke and tweak the sensibilities
of those he considers unwise or effete; Limbaugh engages his loyal listeners as
a virtual cheerleader for their common conservative social and political philoso-
phy; and Savage savages that which he dislikes with an acid tongue and the utter
conviction of a true believer. All four men have also successfully engaged in