The station's pre-dawn personality loses his volunteer slot after spinning a song with the granddaddy of dirty words in it.
By DONG-PHUONG NGUYEN
Published November 24, 2004
TAMPA - A DJ with a pre-dawn show on community radio station WMNF has been pulled off the air for playing profanity during his broadcast.
Norwood Orrick said he thought the songs had indecent words in their titles, but not in their lyrics. A "slip up" caused the playing of one song that contained the "f" word.
Orrick, like a majority of WMNF-FM programmers, is a volunteer. He called his suspension, which is open-ended, "overly harsh."
He said he was merely mocking the Federal Communications Commission during his weekly 4 a.m. to 6 a.m. program. But station managers assert he was willfully testing the FCC.
"I find it ironic, to say the least, that WMNF, which presents itself as something of a bastion of free speech, would be so quick to suspend a programmer - hours after the show in question - based on a single alleged incident which, obviously, no one has even bothered to confirm," Orrick said.
Station program director Randy Wynne, who notified Orrick of his suspension, said Orrick was trying to "mock the FCC by shocking them."
"What Norwood fails to understand is our rules are different from the FCC," Wynne said. "If he wants to push the FCC, he should check with the station ahead of time because it is our licenses that are at risk."
Wynne, who had not heard the Nov. 16 show, based his decision on a listener complaint and Norwood's playlist and computer blog entries.
Wynne said he is waiting to meet with Norwood in person to discuss the suspension and a possible end to it.
According to Orrick, he dedicated his MorningWood show on Nov. 16 to the FCC's "seven dirty words."
He tried to play songs containing those banned words in their titles, but not necessarily in the songs. Some were instrumental, others were heavily bleeped.
When his shift ended at 6 a.m., he went home and took a nap. Norwood said he was awakened about noon by a phone call from Wynne, alerting him of his suspension.
Norwood drew a small but loyal fan base attracted to his liberal views and mix of music that parodies politicians and makes political statements.
Listener Christina Regalado, who has not heard the broadcast but is a Norwood fan and financial supporter, told the station in an e-mail that she would no longer be donating.
"I'm totally flabbergasted," said Regalado, 41. "(MorningWood is) fun and creative. The only thing you hear in the news is the right-wing party. It's refreshing."
Another fan, Scott Karabenick, also wrote to the station.
"We've always found your station to be the last bastion of sanity in this often ridiculously conservative city," he wrote. "This makes your decision all the more baffling."
Rob Lorei, news and public affairs director who helped found WMNF more than 25 years ago, said listener-supported radio struggles to stay afloat, and any FCC fine would obliterate operations.
The station has a $1-million "bare-bones" budget that pays for equipment and staff.
About 17 days a year, they go on the air and ask for listener pledges.
"We don't like to go on the air and raise funds that might end up in the pockets of the FCC," he said. "It would be a big impact on us."
The balance between free speech and expression and decency is "a tough thing," Lorei said.
"A lot of it has to do with the climate of fear that we're in," he said.
The FCC, which under its old system handed out $20,000-$30,000 fines, increased the punishment in the wake of the Janet Jackson incident in which Justin Timberlake tore off part of the singer's costume during the Super Bowl halftime show, exposing a bare breast.
The FCC fined CBS a record $550,000 for the so-called "wardrobe malfunction."
Then came a punishment for radio shock jock Bubba the Love Sponge: $755,000 that Clear Channel Communications agreed to pay for graphic discussions about sex and drugs.
Soon after, Clear Channel negotiated a $1.75-million settlement with the FCC over objections to the content of broadcasts by Howard Stern and other radio personalities.
Jeremy Lipschultz, director of the school of communication at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, said in the 1970s, the FCC handed out very small fines, if any. Then it increased to a couple of thousand dollars per incident.
"Congress pushed the FCC, saying, perhaps if we raised these fines, that would get broadcasters' attention," Lipschultz said. "Really, for large operations like Clear Channel, if you fine them thousands and thousands of dollars, that's a slap on the wrist."
Lipschultz said the FCC has said it takes into consideration the size of the operation when handing down fines, "nevertheless, it has a chilling effect on people when they see the size of the fines coming down and they look at their own budgets." "I think everybody in their right minds has to be concerned if you want to stay on the air," he said.
As for Norwood's show, the silenced DJ conceded that the Nov. 16 program wasn't one of his better ones, but pointed out the song with the "f" word aired before 6 a.m., when FCC rules are relaxed.
"I'm asking that they return me to MorningWood after a suspension of a reasonable amount of time," he said. "However ... I don't hold out a lot of hope."
