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KCRW Backs Down - But Loh's Not Back
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Via LAobserved:
Sandra Tsing Loh and KCRW have apparently buried the hatchet, according to a joint press release from the quirky L.A.-centric commentator's lawyers and the radio station that fired her for saying "f u c k".
It'll be interesting to hear Loh's take on it this Wednesday at a free-speech seminar at Lawry's (details below) ...
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The Loh/KCRW statement (issued, apparently Friday) says: SANTA MONICA – March 15, 2004 – KCRW-FM and Sandra Tsing Loh announced today that the station has decided to reverse its decision to take Loh off the air after an indecent word was inadvertently broadcast during one of her taped commentaries. But Loh has turned down General Manager Ruth Seymour’s invitation to resume "The Loh Life" on KCRW.
"When I made the decision to cancel ‘The Loh Life,’ I was not in possession of all the facts regarding this unfortunate incident—specifically, that it had been Sandra’s practice to leave instructions for her engineer to bleep out certain words, and that this practice had never before gone awry," said Seymour. "I regret having jumped to conclusions about what happened and for erroneously accusing Sandra of an ‘intentional’ breech of our broadcast standards."
"I appreciate the station’s willingness to acknowledge that it was wrong to fire me as well as its invitation for me to return," Loh said. "And while I do wish KCRW well, I personally don’t think I could be comfortable working there anymore."
Contact: For KCRW: Sarah Spitz (310) 450-5183
For Sandra Tsing Loh: Allan Mayer, Sitrick And Company (310) 788-2850 But Loh has no intention of working for KCRW again, and according to longtime friend and supporter Catherine Seipp Loh said: "I feel a certain warmth towards her because she IS such a character," Sandra told me the other day about her former boss. "I do feel Ruth Seymour makes the world a more interesting place, I can't wait to see what she does next, and I really can't wait for it not to be related to me." I'm not sure this warrants any warmth by the rest of us towards KCRW which - its fine generally programming notwithstanding - seems to take extreme advantage of its supposed non-profit status to run a for-profit cash-printing machine (albeit to benefit the NPR chain to which it belongs) in the name of good public radio, while doing little to support local music and nothing to stand up to the FCC's sudden and childish infringement on the first amendment for fear of peppering any ears with "obscenities" in the Bush nation.
Odd that little bits of common language and a 5-second glimpse of Janet Jackson's breast are suddenly so powerful as to drive most of congress to roll over on a 391-22 vote to approve bigger fines for on-air obscenity but ...
You know, I could insert the usual comparisons here - the obscenity of "dirty" speech versus the obscenity of waging an illegal, falsely-declared war; the fact that an R-rated film can decapitate and eviscerate its characters in gory detail but not explicitly show them making love.
I could even do my best imitation of an eight-year-old stomping around in a chat room cursing, running through every obscenity he's ever heard his dad shout in the middle of a car repair, or his mother shriek at being suddenly cut off on the 101.
But I won't. Suffice to say, you can still say pretty much whatever you want on the Internet. Anyone care to take bets on how long it will be before the government picks a particularly high-profile case of online obscenity to turn into an object lesson here?
Here's the data on Tsing Loh's appearance day after tomorrow:
The New Censorship: The FCC, the Justice Department and You
Participants:
Stephen Rohde, Esq., Partner, Rohde & Victoroff, LLP, Past President, ACLU
Sandra Tsing Loh, Writer, Performer, Radio Commentator
Tim Winter, Esq., Executive Director, Parents Television Council
Jeffrey Douglas, Esq., Criminal Defense Attorney, Chairman, Free Speech Coalition
Darlene Lieblich, Vice President, Standards And Practices, Fox Cable Networks
Kenneth D. Freundlich, Esq., Moderator, Schleimer & Freundlich, LLP
March 17, 2004 – 12:00 Noon – Lawry’s Restaurant, Beverly Hills, California
For Tickets, Reservations and Continuing Legal Education Credit, call the Beverly Hills Bar Association at (310) 553-6644 or click www.bhba.org
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| Posted by: mack_reed on Monday, March 15, 2004 - 12:31 PM
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