Thursday, April 30, 1987
Page 4
Daily Nebraskan
tv T -a D.iily
Nsmaskan
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Qnnips snadl quotes
SCC newspaper threatened
Some things are just inexcu
sable. Take what is happening
to the student newspaper on the
campus of Southeast Community
College in Beatrice.
On April 21, SCC board member
Lloyd Bevans of Waverly threa
tened the constitutional rights
of the SCOBeatrice student news
paper, the Challenge. He stated
that he was "serving notice that
he was watching" the newspaper,
and if what he perceives as nega
tive editorials continue, he will
make a motion to "dispense with
publication."
The editorial was based on an
advertisement printed in the 1937
state boy's basketball tournament
programs. The ad highlighted
features of SCC's campuses in
Lincoln and Milford, but not
Beatrice. The paper felt that
without proper exposure the
Beatrice campus will suffer the
same fate as SCC's Fairbury cam
pus, which closed a year ago.
Bevans' comments are ludi
crous. If anything, he should be
praising the Challenge's editor
ial for exposing the administra
tion's lack of commitment to the
Beatrice campus. Unless, of
Articles distort hearings about
I'm writing in regard to a column by
Charles Lieurance "Radio station pro
gressing?" (Daily Nebraskan April 27.)
I spoke with both Lieurance and DN
Editor Jeff Korbelik to request a retrac
tion for a portion of the column that
was incorrect.
In the column, Lieurance creates a
scenario depicting P.T. Martin, KZUM
station manager, and me conducting a
"witch hunt." Lieurance said, "In this
case we have a radio station, KZUM,
notoriously liberal, notoriously free
speech, notoriously anti-Reagan, that
has decided for some unknown reason
to be the first station to implement the
new FCC crackdown on broadcast inde
cencies. That's a new twist the pro
gressive liberals as the bloodhounds of
Reagan policy."
Guest Opinion
The FCC on April 17 did in fact crack
down on broadcast indecency. On the
surface, Lieurance claims his editorial
was correct. Had he done a little inves
tigation, he would have learned that
the complaint against Ron Kurtenbach
was filed with the KZUM Programming
Board on April 6, almost two weeks
prior to the "new FCC crackdown."
Complaint before
In my conversation with Lieurance
and Korbelik, Lieurance told me that
his column was accurate in that the
FCC had ruled in 1975 on the Pacifica
Radio case (George Carlin and the
"seven dirty words") and had had in
the past two years additional rulings
regarding broadcast indecency and that
consequently, was the "cracking down."
The critical "fact," crucial to his case,
is his insinuation that KZUM acted
after the fact and in response to what
he refers to as "the new FCC crack
down." It's an absolute fabrication and
does the DN, its readers and the public
at large a great disservice.
In regard to the unfavorable referen
ces to myself by Lieurance, I would like
to address the following comments:
First, I am a KZUM volunteer and
Ji-tT Korbelik, Editor, 47J ITCC,
.lames Hirers, Editorial Vtujo Editor
Usv Olson, Associate Ni'K s Editor
Mike linllcy, A' M'r,s Editor
Joan Ki'zae. Cop M'.sA Chief
course, Bevans is for the closure
of the Beatrice campus, which
his statements imply. The stu
dents only want support from
their administration.
O Kudos to those few stu
dents who have organized the
UNL chapter of Amnesty Inter
national, a non-profit organiza
tion that works for the release of
poilitical prisoners by writing
letters to officials in other coun
tries who arc in positions to free
them. The organization also helps
political prisoners by writing
O The Daily Nebraskan would
like to compliment the Sheldon
Memorial Art Gallery for its acqui
sition of a 40 foot sculpture by
Mark di Suervo that will eventu
ally be placed in the courtyard of
the Lied Center for Performing
Arts. The original cost of the
piece was $500,000, but Sheldon
got it for $450,000 with a grant
from the Athena Foundation of
New York City that paid $200,000.
O The DN recommends that
union officials move the weight
machine away from the UNL
Dairy Store. There's nothing more
depressing than standing in line
waiting for ice cream and seeing
that scale. Talk about guilt trips.
programer. I have been elected to the
Programming Board by members, of
KZUM. The board is comprised of seven
members, and any recommendations,
policies, procedures or directives must
be arrived at by a majority vote of this
board. I am chairman of this board and
a voting member. At other commercial
radio stations, a Program director,
usually salaried, "heads" programming.
I do not get paid for my participation
on the board. I am one-seventh of the
board, and not a program director.
No program director
I work 40 hours a week and attend
the university, in addition to my volun
teer duties as a KZUM programmer and
chairman of the board. Consequently, I
have very little use or time for the
assumptions about me that you have
chosen to publish.
Lieurance writes, "Greg Harm, who
heads the Programming Board, was
hard-pressed even to come up with a
coherent definition of the part of the
KZUM policy Kurtenbach had violated
or even the policy itself. He just kept
mumbling something abut 'using dis
cretion.' "
For those who didn't attend the
meeting, during the 20 minutes allot
ted to Kurtenbach, his lawyer intro
duced a memo issued by the program
ming board, dated Oct. 20, 1986, re
garding the use of obscenity in program
ming. The memo was issued in response
to a complaint by a listener about a
song aired on a KZUM program. The
listener had not heard any warning or
disclaimer about listener discretion.
The song, I told the hearing board, was
entitled "I Want To F- The Dead." I
wrote on this memo that it would be
hard to prove that it had socially
redeeming value, a criteria used in
judging obscenity. I explained this in
my three-minute statement to the hear
ing board.
No muttering
After all other testimony was taken,
the board asked me whether program
mers are told not to use obscenity. My
understanding is that programmers in
the training stage are told that it is
acceptable to air recorded obscenity,
Dn pennl; luireseEtts alternative
Dark-horse candidate breathes fresh
I hold that political cynicism is jus
tified. While I am a' registered
Republican and hold to a number of
the idea clusters associated with what
is termed "Republican" ideology only
in the broadest sense of the term, I
hold no delusions about the party.
To wit: The party is too often controlled
by parochial interests that guarantee a
disheartening homogeneity of policy
options.
John Anderson was the last serious
Republican presidential candidate with
what could be termed "new ideas"
(though I can't say that I would vote for
him today). And we know what hap
pened to Anderson.
In contrast to British conservatism,
American conservatism as expressed
through the Republican Party is an
anemic cousin, hardly knowing what to
do except to blither mindless plati
tudes about free enterprise and com
mies. It lacked (and lacks) a substan
tive positive vision. That is, it lacked a
substantive positive vision until the
candidacy of Peter du Pont.
I went to his speech last Thursday
half expecting another Bush clone (or
Dole clone, whatever). Yet I must con
fess I was impressed, very impressed.
It's difficult to use positive phrases
in association with political candidates
these days that don't sound trite. One
of the most trite phrases candidates
like to associate with themselves is
that they are running a campaign of
ideas." But I'll say it anyway (I'm cyni
cal and have no personal interest in his
campaign): du Pont is a candidate of
ideas.
When I was listening to him talk I
had to keep pinching myself and re
peating, "I don't think I'm running for
president, am I?"
but only with a disclaimer, and only
between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m. In his
statement to the board, Thomas Irwin,
a new programmer, also said that he
had been told that the use of recorded
material was acceptable, but that say
ing it was forbidden. "
If Lieurance felt that I was "mutter
ing," it is hard to imagine that I was
inaudible to just one person "in an
airless room."
Opinions fabricated
Where Lieurance obtains "an excep
tional psychic ability" to read my mind
is beyond me, but obviously he knows
my innermost thoughts. He writes ref
erring to the station manager and
myself: "They wanted Ron Kurtenbach
gone. Outta there." Again Lieurance exclaims
his fantasies to be factual opinions of
others. At the time his column was
printed I had not met him, nor was I
ever interviewed by him, and yet he
attributes feelings and attitudes to me. '
Concerning Kurtenbach, I have de
bated issues with him. We do not
always agree. The board agreed (in our
April 1 1 public meeting) as a body to
pass this complaint on to a hearing,
feeling this was a correct adherence to
station policy. We also felt that given
Kurtenbach's at times stormy relation
ship with the board, the issue would be
better served by a more impartial body
than this one. I also stated this during
the hearing, but perhaps I was still
"mumbling."
Programming a privilege
Lieurance writes, "Ron Kurtenbach
has earned his right to a program."
Please be informed that broadcasting,
like a drivers license, is a privilege, but
not a right. It has its restrictions.
Although Kurtenbach (among others)
helped establish KZUM and contrib
uted to the establishment of the rules
and bylaws that govern all station
operations, he is not above these rules.
All programmers and volunteers have
to adhere to the same guidelines. When
alleged complaints of violations of
these rules arise, the Board of Direc
tors, the programming board and the
station manager have given the author
ity and duty to resolve these issues.
So what are the ideas? A fair ques
tion for a candidate proffering himself
as the Republican candidate of change
(or is that an oxymoron?) Three issues
caught my eye in his discussion.
' First, effluency fees (that's my term
for his proposal). Du Pont is actually
talking about doing something about
pollution. In good conservative fashion,
he recognizes two facts. The first is
that pollution (effluents) has costs: It
costs people in terms of health and
well-being, in terms of property and
recreation. If polluters can pollute
freely, then all they're doing is trans
fering a cost they legitimately should
bear to other people. (Economists term
this an "externality.") Second, du Pont
recognizes the force of financial incen
tives in altering business behavior.
r . --.
; ft"
Jim
Rogers
Effluency fees are the free-enterprise
solution to the pollution problem. What
they force is the "internalization" of
costs. That is, the firm that pollutes
must pay the cost of its garbage: it
can't shift the cost of that garbage onto
third parties.
Second, du Pont strongly supports
an educational voucher system. There
are an overwhelming number of rea
sons to adopt avoucher system for edu
cational financing. Du Pont pushes the
argument that government monopolies
are inefficient and that the surest
method of increasing quality and hold
ing the line on costs is to foment com-
Programmers who decide to test the
limits of these rules face discipline
ranging from oral reprimands to loss of
programming privileges.
How many times in the future will
the board be required to consume val
uable meeting time to field complaints
such as "Ron is using his show to
attack my personal integrity" or "He
denied me access to the studio," or "He
harassed me in front of my son in the
studio," or "He used profanity in voic
ing his opinion of other programmers
over the air?" No one can predict, but
these are all examples of issues which
have been addressed during the past
year since I have been on the board.
Release unappreciated
For one who professes the value of
solidarity (a concept I have spent the
last decade struggling for as a volun
teer union organizer), Ron does little to
actually promote it when the station
itself is concerned. Instead of promot
ing harmony and mutual understand
ing, he criticizes all who in his opinion,
are exploiting the station. His victims
include those who make a living by
playing live music, those who work in
record stores, those who sell records or
are employed by other radio stations.
As long as these people refrain from
advertising, announcing their own gi j,
etc., the board stands up to protect its
privilege to broadcast.
Recently, violations of the station's
non-commercial policy resulted in the
suspension of two programmers and
the cancellation of one programmer's
show. The board decided to shorten the
suspension of the other programmer
from six weeks to four weeks because
of good behavior, sparking another
reaction and expression of injustice
from Kurtenbach: "It wasn't on the
agenda!"
In the case at hand, Kurtenbach
elected to further publicize this inci
dent by sending a "press release" to
the local media. (This was done the
week after the announcement cf the
new FCC policy of April 17.) He has
never been elected or appointed as a
designated official KZUM spokesman,
nor did he have any authority to act on
s
life into stuffy GOP
petition in the educational system
Vouchers will do that.
What vouchers do is provide each
parent with a government coupon that
can be redeemed only for the education
of the child. But the coupon can be
redeemed at the school that the parent
chooses not necessarily the government-run
school. Thus, the system allows
real competition with all its benef
its. (I presume the method of imple
menting the system would be to refuse
federal educational monies to the states
unless they implemented the system.)
Finally, du Pont is a firm and force
ful supporter of the Reagan Doctrine.
Now, that isn't a doctrine that Presi
dent Reagan thought up and imple
mented. Rather, it is a term invented by
the New Republic to describe an ideal
ized version of Reagan's commitment
to freedom in every country in the
world. It includes supporting every
democratic movement against tyrants
of both the left and the right. Consis
tent with this, du Pont favors a much
stronger U.S. line against South Africa
while still supporting government aid
to Nicaraguan freedom fighters.
I've done little justice to the sub
tlety and sophistication of du Pont's
"new ideas" campaign. Yet du Pont is a
candidate to watch and one of the few
exciting prospects on what proposes to
be a lackluster race for the Republican
nomination. Even if du Pont ultimately
loses the race for the nomination, a
strong showing in the early primaries,
thereby drawing attention to his plat
form, can do nothing other than sweep
away some of the many cobwebs resid
ing in the G.O.P.
Sogers is an economics graduate stu
dent, law student and Daily Nebraskan
editorial page editor.
behalf of the station or to misrepresent i
his views as being those of the station.
There are at least 70 other programmers
at KZUM and more than 500 KZUM
members. The news and opinions of
one person must be put in proper
perspective.
If the aforementioned issuance of a
press release, the perpetual debate,
harassment of colleagues, and the use
of the organization for personal public
ity do not constitute exploitation of the
station and of the time and energy of
those other programmers with an unneces
sary hinderance in the performance of
station duties, I don't know what does.
Story biased
Finally, I take exception to what
Lieurance considers to be, in his words,
a "hard news" article in the same
issue, "Board clears DJ of obscenity
charge," I have never taken any jour
nalism classes, but it is my under
standing that "hard news" is that
which shares pertinent, timely items of
interest and is presented in an unbi
ased manner. Only one word was attrib
uted to Martin. No other reference was
made to the opposition. Several quotes
were attributed to Kurtenbach.
I asked Lieurance why no opposing
viewpoints to the decision were pres
ented, and he indicated that everyone
had left too quickly, and he had tried
unsuccessfuly to reach Martin by phone.
I was at the station that day until 5:15
p.m., but it is apparent that no other
information mattered to him.
It is unfortunate that Lieurance
writes news stories disguised as edi
torials and vice versa. His personal bias
should remain out of his "hard news'
stories, and his editorials should at
least be based on facts he and the DN
chose to omit. . "
Perhaps Lieurance would like to
become a KZUM programmer while
still a paid staff member of the Daily
Nebraskan. He might then learn a true
understanding of what "conflict of
interest" means to Kurtenbach and
what others interpret as harassment.
Gregory P. Harm
chairman, Programming Board
KZUM