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Thursday, April 10, 2008

WHERE DOES A SHOCK JOCK LEARN HOW TO BE A SHOCK JOCK?




Randy Griesan wants to be a shock jock, but he quickly learned he's not going to learn how to do that at Montclair State University in New Jersey. The school has suspended the college radio personality known on the air as Randy Rogers because of a racy video of his radio show that appeared on Myspace. Seems a parent of a 19 year old girl watched a video of the young lady giving the 21 year old announcer a lap dance , That didn't sit well with the woman, who happens to be the young woman's mom. Randy says Mom just doesn't like him.

Whatever. When I was in college in Bucks county, Pennsylvania, I did a closed-circut radio show and I too pushed the envelope. I staged stunts and while I'm now embarrassed about it, at a time when gays were becoming active on college campuses I taunted them on the air. I was suspended from the radio station, but not the school.

Having said that, what Randy Whatshisname is now learning is that free speech does not include radio stations. Someone always has control over content and in this particular case it's Montclair University, which had every right in the world to yank his show and discipline him. His punishment, banishment from campus for a year, seems a little harsh, but hey, it's a hard knock world.

What Randy Whatshisname will soon learn is that you can't say whatever you want on public airwaves. He does have other options and one of them is the Internet, but again, whoever runs the server can also decide whether the content is suitable for web casting. Who knows if Whatshisname really wants to get into broadcasting or whether its some 20-something angst that drive him to get college girls to strip and talk dirty on the radio in front of a video camera.Whatshisname is by no means an original. It's way too easy to be foul and parade nearly naked women into a radio studio. Howard Stern has been doing it for years. One thing is for certain, he hasn't done anything illegal. Best we can tell all of the nearly naked women are 18 and over and consenting adults. But, this will be a valuable lesson in what is and what isn't free speech.

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