On Monday, John ‘Sly’ Sylvester announced his retirement from his on-air job at WIBA-FM. His Facebook post read, “I’ve been working at 2 radio companies and 3 different stations for the last 6 years. After almost 45 years in radio with all its ups and downs, the time is right. I will continue to work at Big Radio on Q102 & 93.7 weekdays as well as some weekends at 101.5.”
There is no doubt his desire to be a broadcaster was a sincere one. He stayed far longer in the business than most people ever do who have a chance to sit behind a studio microphone. His championing of liberal and progressive causes has also been a mainstay of his time in the Madison radio market. If one could just stay on the points already presented in this post it could be an ‘all-American’ type post. A local guy who has a dream and follows it to the broadcasting studios in the capital city with many listeners in southern Wisconsin who tune him in either at home or in their car heading to work or back home again. If you know my lifelong love of radio, as well as my deep admiration for the ones who make this most intimate of mediums an essential form of communication in society, you then also know I would love to make this post sing with praise for one who has lasted so long behind a microphone.
But there is another side to the long chapter of Sly’s broadcasting career. One that I found most unpleasant, one that ran counter to my foundations as a former radio broadcaster who also sat behind a studio microphone. One that ran in the complete opposite direction as a radio listener, which started in my youth at home as we had no television. In 2011, the Federal Communications Commission received notice (Complaint 11-WB14678720 ) that Sly, while at WTDY, made the following on-air remarks.
Those on-air remarks were not the first or only verbal insults made by Sly. When I first discovered Sly on the radio, Madison had its first woman mayor, Susan Bauman. I had never before heard the term ‘pussy-whipped’ over the radio airwaves or the level of misogyny that was aroused due to policy differences or willfully constructed bombast for what one has to assume were designed to boost broadcast ratings. (One also does have to fault radio management for allowing such behavior over the airwaves.) In 2004, Sly referred to then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice as “Aunt Jemima.” I no longer tuned into Sly following the mocking of someone with colon cancer and making outlandish sexual statements. There are basement steps no self-respecting radio listener should ever take.
Over the years, I have spoken about the ‘tone’ we want to hear on our radio airwaves and the standards we want to be honored by those who hold broadcasting licenses. We have had not enough discussion about why or how our public radio airwaves became angry places as opposed to the friendly ones that many of us recall from our youth. I think these concerns about our radio airwaves are very legitimate to consider. We need to honestly recall the bombast that we associate with today’s angry AM radio due to conservative conspiracy theories and lies about a ‘stolen election’, had its share of liberal absurdities over the years, too.
The FCC guidelines for the use of our airwaves should have some meaning. Every letter of the regulations should be honored. Call me old-fashioned, but that is just how I think. Having worked in government I fully understand there is no way to defend half a law or regulation and pretend the part we do not like can be disregarded.
I reject any notion that there is a constitutional question about free speech when it comes to what Sly did over the radio airwaves. If Sly wants to speak from a street corner, write a book, or even blog he can go forward with gusto. If someone tried to stifle him at any point in the public square, or online he would be advocated for on my blog. Not for content, but for his right to free speech. Nor can one say I am biased when it comes to the issue of Sly and only oppose certain broadcasters. This is not about friend or foe. This is about the character of radio. It is about the quality of what is on the airwaves that the public owns. Simply put, good taste and decency should still apply on the airwaves.
The WDOR-FM Sturgeon Bay signal I broadcast over reached down to Milwaukee at night, and I often spoke to listeners from that region of the state. I knew there was more to my job than just being the average, everyday neighborhood DJ. I felt a bigger responsibility to do my job in the best way I could. I was not only representing myself on the air but also the station. That mattered to me.
Being a friendly neighborhood broadcaster now seems quaint. It shouldn’t. Radio listeners need to, again, care enough about their airwaves to demand station owners be accountable for what they send out over the airwaves from their radio towers.
CAFFEINATED POLITICS 