How are US broadcast news shows handling the name Pussy Riot?

[73 LeBaron]

Originally Posted by BJMoose

So you're in a position to know if NPR still does what they did back in the 80s.

Back then, if some "dirty words" were going to pop up in a news story (the segments having been preproduced) on ME or ATC, they'd send a "Language Advisory" over the DACS, with enough detail that a local station could bleep it on the fly if they so choose (we never did, and to my knowledge we never got any complaints; you can get away with things in news programs that you can't get away with in music programs).

They call it WebDACS now, delivered over a secure server, and there's a "whiteboard" for the whole of ME that is updated in real time for promo and continuity purposes, and there are alerts about "strong language." The national hosts will also give warnings about language and descriptions in some stories too ("The following report contains strong language/graphic descriptions.") I am not very familiar with ATC, being a morning guy for the past 30 years or so, but there's a whiteboard for that too, and the weekend news blocks have them too.

I've only been on the non-com side for a couple of years, having worked in commercial broadcast for decades before that. I don't know if it's NPR policy, but our policy is to air all news broadcasts live, though long-form listener participation programs can and are time-shifted, like Diane Rehm in my original reply. We carry her live on IQ 10:00 am-12:00 noon, with a rebroadcast 10:00 pm-12:00 mid.

I well remember when the commercial networks (NBC, CBS, ABC; I never worked at a Mutual station) were wire-delivered, and sometimes programming strategy was to take the "short version" fed at :57 so the station would be "back to music" when the hourly news began on the competition. When Clear Channel had a national news feed, it was sent as a data packet on the Prophet computer network and local stations were expected to run it when they wanted. Ah, the days when even the music stations carried hourly news!

LeBaron

ETA: My experience with Clear Channel/Bain Capital will definitely affect how I vote in November, I must say.