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Open dialogue is the loser in KTAR-ASU bus fracas
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Valley news radio station KTAR (92.3 FM) is milking the station’s ban from Arizona State University shuttle bus radios for all it’s worth and then some.
The station is still trailing KFYI (550 AM) in the ratings despite shifting its talk-radio format to the FM dial. So naturally the station’s on-air employees are trying to shore up its conservative credentials by hyping the fact their station was booted off eight shuttle routes among ASU’s four campuses late last week.
This was a response to two complaints from one rider offended by programming overheard on a shuttle’s speakers, ASU spokeswoman Leah Hardesty told us Monday. She said the offending material touched on hot-button multicultural issues, but she could not confirm whether it came from the mouth of immigration-obsessed morning personality Darrell Ankarlo.
“Whether one person or 10,000 people complain, we’re going to look into it,” Hardesty said. Apparently nothing was done the first time this person complained. But given what it was about we’re not too upset about that.
America is the land of conflicting impulses. We don’t want to have to listen to anything we don’t want to hear. Nor do we want to be caught telling someone else what we can and can’t listen to. And the best way to get people to listen to you is to have someone else tell them they shouldn’t.
KTAR, which sent Ankarlo to broadcast from the campus Monday, released a copy of a memo sent by Coach America director of operations Fred Seibel to ASU shuttle drivers telling them not to tune their radios to KTAR. “While on duty, only a very generic station should be aired or, ideally, the radio need not be played at all,” the e-mail reads.
By Monday, the company had made that “ideal” the temporary rule until ASU settled onits own policy. Meanwhile, the origin of the KTAR-specific ban came under dispute.
Coach America spokesman George Gravley indicated the school was in the driver’s seat all along, “Their name is on the side of the bus, they get to make these kinds of decisions,” he said.
Hardesty maintained ASU only asked that the radios be turned down or off.
The end result of all this is everyone is left to their own downloadable devices for their news and entertainment, and everyone loses as the chances for open debate dwindle.
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