Radio station fine urged over crank call to Castro
By Associated Press
Published April 25, 2004
MIAMI - The Federal Communications Commission is proposing a $4,000 fine for a Miami radio station that got through by phone to Cuban President Fidel Castro in a crank call and broadcast the communist leader before rudely letting him in on the joke.
The Spanish-speaking hosts of "The Morning High Jinks" on WXDJ-FM edited tapes of an earlier prank involving Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and fed pleasantries to Castro before breaking in and calling him an assassin. The conversation disintegrated into Castro denouncing the callers with a stream of vulgarities.
The FCC concluded in a notice issued Friday that the station should be fined for the antics of talk-show hosts Joe Ferrero and Enrique Santos that were broadcast last June 17. Payment or a request for cancellation or reduction is required in 30 days.
The agency rejected the station's claim that people in Cuba are exempt from an FCC rule requiring notification to people before their voices are used.
The station noted the lack of diplomatic relations with Cuba and travel restrictions on U.S. citizens, but the FCC said the political status and the residence of people to be put on the air were no excuses.
"It was in fact the intention and result of WXDJ's actions to fool and surprise the recipients of the call," the commission notice said.
There was no answer at the station's business line Saturday, and a call to the station's Washington attorney was not immediately returned.
Snippets of Chavez's voice were used to move the call from a foreign ministry receptionist up the chain to Castro in a five-minute broadcast. Chavez was the target of a prank by the same DJs five months before.
WXDJ-FM producer Alberto Sardinas said at the time that the station received several congratulatory calls.
Venezuelan Embassy spokesman Andres Izarra called the pranks "very irresponsible and unethical."
