Don’t get me wrong. I love Air America Radio and am delighted to have an affiliate in Austin. I would like to think they sell more local ads, but it’s central Texas, even if it is Austin.
OK, what bothers me is the totally brain dead PSA’s that seem to be the bread and butter of KOKE-AM, when they are not broadcasting infomercials and gardening shows on the weekend.
Some of them are downright racist. A stroke PSA, in which a man, who sounds a bit like James Earl Jones, stumbles over a misstatement of the First Amendment. The announcer explains that the speaker is most likely an African American, because they are twice as likely to have a stroke than Whites. OK, the copywriter was not likely to have had even a high school statistics course, since Black folks comprise only about one sixth of the population compared to Whites. That means, taken at face value, that three times more White folks have strokes than Blacks. Now, I want everyone to have access to good preventative health care, but Black people are less likely because of economic reasons to have the health care they need. That issue is not directly addressed by the ad.
I can’t figure out the gun-crimes PSA’s. These are distributed by the Bush Justice Department. The tag line is "gun crimes hit home." Don’t mistake that for being a victim of a gun crime hitting home, this strictly means that the punishment for a gun crime hits home, as if punishment for a drug possession might not hit home as hard. It’s only described as a gun crime. The victim of the punishment is described, not as a criminal, but as an otherwise responsible man who worries about not being able to protect his family from prison. The judge sentences a man to five years for an unexplained "gun crime." Not specifically armed robbery, or aggravated assault; perhaps just having a gun for protection while he walks his little brother home from school. That act would include a Federal gun crime if he entered the school zone. God help him if he had a joint in his pocket.
Are people who write for radio just weak minded, or is this a subtle form of deliberate propaganda?