NY Radio station mocks victims of tsunami

[Greenguy]

http://cbsnewyork.com/topstories/top...025160857.html

Jan 25, 2005 6:01 pm US/Eastern
NEW YORK (CBS) As the world continues to pour out its heart and pocketbooks to victims of the Asian tsunami, a New York radio station played a song, which sparked outrage from listeners, because it used racial slurs and made light of the disaster.

With the tsunami killing an astounding 212,000 and leaving 6,200 others missing, who would poke fun at this?

The answer is hip-hop radio station WQHT, known as Hot 97. The station’s morning DJ, known as Miss Jones, aired an insulting song that included racial slurs at Asians and had lyrics about God laughing at those who drowned in the waves.

Jameson Gong, who is with the Organization of Chinese Americans, says Asian Americans are outraged.

“People from all over the community are talking about what to do, rallies, protests and sending letters to the FCC,” says Jameson Gong of the organization of Chinese Americans.

The station, owned by Emmis Communications, aired the song for four days before pulling it.

Calls to station management were not returned but on the station’s website a statement was posted.

“Hot 97 regrets the airing of material that made light of a serious and tragic event. We apologize to our listeners and anyone who was offended.” - WQHT radio statement.

City Council member John Liu would like to see Federal action.

“Clearly, if the FCC can level a $550,000.00 fine for a wardrobe malfunction, they certainly can address this kind of absolute indecency,” said John Liu, (D) New York City Council.

The station has issued an apology but others say that is not enough. They feel that some punitive action needs to be taken.
*****

This has been on the news all morning - while I agree 100% that the song is VERY offensive, here's the problem with the rest of it:

1 - The repeated cries for fines form the FCC - that's NOT what the FCC does! They can't issue fines for things some people think are indecent. If they could, I'd be filing complaints about Bill O'Rilley all day long

2 - It truly is an offensive song, yet all the news outlets keep playing the song or printing the lyrics under the cover that it's "news" If it's that offensive, why put it out there for the entire country to hear/read?

Fucking Media

[Useless]

What people are offended by today, will be funny as all hell next year once the human drama and feeling of connection to the victims fades into the night. We humans are a pretty messed up species. I've heard some horribly distasteful 9/11 jokes that I laughed at not long ago, though on the morning of the tragedy I was crying in front of my television.

[Greenguy]

Oh yeah - this is very much a case of "Too Soon?"

[cd34]

the 4Cs of advertising

cash, conflict, catastrophy & controversy

a local news station slogan (internally) is:

If it bleeds, it leads

They happen to be the top rated news program.

Or was your question rhetorical?

[Greenguy]

Well, the same thing can be said about Janet Jackson's boob - would there have been that much outrage if it wasn't in all the media outlets for weeks & weeks afterwords?

I'm sure Cleo knows about Janet Jackson's tit, but has no clue who won the Super Bowl last year, let alone who played in it

[Cleo]

You are very right about the boob and Super bowl.

People deal with tragedy by making humor of it sometimes. At this rate we are all going to get so PC that humor will have to be banned.

Fucking FCC, oh wait I can't say fucking according to the fucking FCC.

[cd34]

is it 1984 yet?

I couldn't tell you who was in the superbowl either -- and I watched it.

I do remember the commercials though.

Oddly, the two events during the superbowl that garnered the most replays on Tivo where her boob shot which was a close second to the flatulant Budwiser horse.

[Jim]

I heard about this yesterday...and I am not saying "welcome to yesterday" I was told that even tshirthell had to remove the shirt I saw that said, "I went to Thailand to fuck a 14 yo and all I got was a tsunami". Just a little too soon

Holy Crap...I just ran my spell checker and I spelled both Thailand and tsunami correctly

[Useless]

Originally Posted by Jim

I went to Thailand to fuck a 14 yo and all I got was a tsunami

Tragedy or not - that's funny.

[Cleo]

Yeah I have to agree that it is pretty fucking funny.

[Greenguy]

http://www.tshirthell.com/store/clic...thanhell.shtml

I SURFED THE TSUNAMI 2004
We're donating 20% of the profits of this T to ourselves to cover the increase in our Prostitute Petty Cash Fund now that all the low cost Thai 12 yr olds are "unavailable".

[Jim]

That's nice...
And yet they pulled the good teeshirt

[Cleo]

That is so tasteless and inappropriate… and fucking funny as hell at the same time.

[Greenguy]

Originally Posted by Jim

That's nice...
And yet they pulled the good teeshirt

I go there quite often & that's the only Tsunami shirt I've seen there - me thinks you're mistaken about the site, as I pointed out on the radio show last week

[GenXer]

My mouth is hanging wide open reading this thread.

Both shock and laughter are at hand.

[Useless]

Originally Posted by Greenguy

I SURFED THE TSUNAMI 2004
We're donating 20% of the profits of this T to ourselves to cover the increase in our Prostitute Petty Cash Fund now that all the low cost Thai 12 yr olds are "unavailable".

Gawd, that is terrific and oh so bad at the same time.

[Pazz]

Having close friends that were in Puket at the time and were battered by the water I can't help feel for them and these stories make me sick.

[digifan]

Originally Posted by Greenguy

I go there quite often & that's the only Tsunami shirt I've seen there - me thinks you're mistaken about the site, as I pointed out on the radio show last week

Hmm.. it was posted on other boards too together with the pic of the shirt.




Go Jim, go!

[Greenguy]

Prove me wrong Jim & digifan....PROVE ME WRONG!

[Linkster]

I guess one of these days Im gonna have to figure out why fucking people have to be so politically correct? If you cant say what you want, why bother talking - pretty soon the government will be telling us that you have to use "other terms" when referring to any race, creed, color, religion or ethnicity - let alone job description.

I guess I need to get married again so I can have(oops I guess I should say coexist with) a household engineer, and be able to take out the "refuse" for the sanitary engineers every Monday and Thursday - or take a trip to the local jail so I can visit with the "temporarily detained personnel"

Thought this was fantastic:
"Danville, California (December 4, 2004) MetaNewsWire Los Angeles County's insistence on covering over with labels any computer networking protocols that mention master/slave jargon, has been chosen the top example of political correctness in language for 2004 "

"Following closely were non-same sex marriage, for marriage, waitron for waiter or waitress, Red Sox Lover rather than the more aggressive Yankee Hater during the ALCS playoffs, and Higher Power for God, mention of whom is considered too religious by some"

And if youve never read it - Red Riding Hood in todays proper bedtime story books:
http://philip.greenspun.com/zoo/red-riding-hood

[Osiris]

Originally Posted by Linkster

If you cant say what you want, why bother talking

- pretty soon the government will be telling us that you have to use "other terms" when referring to any race, creed, color, religion or ethnicity - let alone job description.

That's going in my signature because that's exactly how I feel. It's also the reason I am quiet a lot of the time whether in public or on internet message boards.. Have to be careful with what you say and how you say it because there's always going to be that ONE mother fucker that has a problem with it and it causes shit with everyone else..

We're not too far away from the government doing just that!

[Greenguy]

Watch your tone here on the board Osiris

[digifan]

Originally Posted by Greenguy

Prove me wrong Jim & digifan....PROVE ME WRONG!

Eh you won't like it but here you go:

http://www.gfy.com/showthread.php?t=...ght=tshirthell

sorry for the link to another board but that guy saved the pic of the t-shirt that was pulled.

[digifan]

Btw I did that search to prove Jim is right..

[Greenguy]

They are much more rude over there

Thanks for proving me wrong