[grc] Disclaimers, "Any views & opinions you hear are not necessarily . . ."

[David Ferland]

Great topic, and one we're struggling with now more than ever. We require
an Opinion Disclaimer when a programmer feels the need to 'editorialize.'
In practice, however, it's blurbed at the beginning of a show and used as a
blanket license for the Big Whatever. We're considering dropping it, or at
least requiring that it preceed each opinion each time.

The goals of journalistic ethics etc. are laudable, but closer to the daily
'open format' bone for us would be to build an understanding of programmers'
position of power and how they need to be aware of the responsibility they
carry. Now-a-days, coded language is considered racism undercover. Dog
Whistle Politics is designed specifically to raise your hackles and create
distance. Some is simple and unwitting, most is one-sided bloviation and/or
unwarranted provocation. Not much of it can be considered good radio.

Our listeners routinely believe that our station/licensee believes
something a programmer said, that to 'allow' it is to agree with it. So the
OD doesn't make our station seem unbiased, quite the contrary in fact.

Salute,
Dave Ferland
Goddard College Community Radio

On Tue, Jan 5, 2016 at 10:54 AM, Rashida Washington <
rwashington at rctvmedia.org> wrote:

> It has been my experience that these are not government required
> disclaimers but rather put in place by the management of the station to
> protect it from any possible backlash from the public. It allows the
> station to be unbiased & air content that comes from many perspectives. We
> are a public access TV station so we do not censor content & encourage our
> community to submit any and everything. We can not do that successfully if
> we appear to be biased towards any particular way of thinking.
>
>
>
>
> --
> Rashida Burch-Washington
> Rochester Community TV, Inc.
> TWC Channel 15 & 98.5​
> WXIR-LP, 100.9 FM
>
> rwashington at rctvmedia.org
> _______________________________________________
> grc mailing list
> grc at maillist.peak.org
> http://maillist.peak.org/mailman/listinfo/grc
>



-- 
David Ferland david.ferland at goddard.edu
WGDR-WGDH Operations Manager
802.322.1681
Goddard College 123 Pitkin Road Plainfield, VT 05667
wgdr.org