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Team Radio, Stillwater, with Westboro of Topeka

T

TTowner

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Inactive User
I have read on Facebook that Team Radio in Stillwater will be airing a five minute "message" from Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka tomorrow morning. This offer from the stations is in exchange for their agreeing not to attend the memorial service for Coaches Budke and Serna tomorrow morning. I don't know where to start with this!!

Knowing Westboro's mindset, and their penchant for offensive signs and language at their protests and on their website, why do you risk your reputation by acknowledging their existence on the air? Why give them a potentially larger audience than they would ever get at the service through which their venom can be transmitted? And can they be trusted not to attend the service.

I detest their message and am heavy of heart that they insist on crashing events like this, but enabling them like this is not the act of a responsible broadcaster. I understand the motive, but appeasement didn't work for Neville Chamberlain. It won't here and now either.
 
Westboro frequently offers to drop its protests in exchange for airtime on local radio and/or TV stations. I have mixed opinions about appeasing them myself. I'm not sure if I'd do it or not if I ran a radio station. I might have to consider it, though, just because I'd want to save those families some extra grief, and I could always tell people to turn my station off during the time they were speaking. It's easier to ignore them when they're on a station that less than 10% of the population listens to than if they get media coverage for their protests!
 
That's it! Give them the airtime then run a promo an hour for two days before, warning people!
 
...Except people will tune in out of curiosity, giving them a greater audience.

I would wonder what sorts of requirements there would be regarding what time of day the message had to be played, and whether or not we could play laughter or booing behind it.

I also would only agree to play it AFTER the event and AFTER they hadn't showed up. Before? Not without a written contract that lets me OWN you and your church of you show up within 100 miles of the event.
 
I personally believe that giving them air-time is worth it so the families of the deceased can lay their love one's to rest peacefully. I know many stations have done it and they are viewed as heroes in their community. The Westboro folks are very disturbed and it is a shame they win either way.
 
I will say that I don't know I buy the idea that more people would tune in out of curiosity if you announced they would be on your station ahead of time. That probably would've been true before and around the time of Matthew Sheppard, but I think everyone pretty well knows who these people are and what they're about. I also tend to believe pretty much everyone finds them morally reprehensible.

By the way, a friend of mine owns a station in Arkansas, and he offered them airtime to keep them from protesting a football player's funeral. His logic was, like it or not, they have a First Amendment right, and radio was a better place to allow them to exercise that right than in front of a grieving family. It seems like pretty sound logic to me.

Personally, I'd prefer if more people could find creative ways to keep these guys away. When they went to St. Joseph, MO for a funeral protest, the fire department decided that day was the perfect day to flush fire hydrants, and there happened to be one right by the funeral home. When they came to Joplin after the tornadoes six months ago, there was an anonymous tip that indicated a car with Kansas plates was trafficking drugs, and that car just happened to be located at the hotel where Westboro was staying. So, the police detained them until after the President left town. Of course, McAlester also dealt with them a few years ago after someone slashed their tires. I don't necessarily condone doing illegal things to keep them away, but I can't imagine there's a jury anywhere that would convict anyone in that case. Then again, another dirty secret is that almost everyone in that family is a lawyer. So, they have unlimited legal resources.
 
TTowner said:
I have read on Facebook that Team Radio in Stillwater will be airing a five minute "message" from Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka tomorrow morning. This offer from the stations is in exchange for their agreeing not to attend the memorial service for Coaches Budke and Serna tomorrow morning. I don't know where to start with this!!

Knowing Westboro's mindset, and their penchant for offensive signs and language at their protests and on their website, why do you risk your reputation by acknowledging their existence on the air? Why give them a potentially larger audience than they would ever get at the service through which their venom can be transmitted? And can they be trusted not to attend the service.

I detest their message and am heavy of heart that they insist on crashing events like this, but enabling them like this is not the act of a responsible broadcaster. I understand the motive, but appeasement didn't work for Neville Chamberlain. It won't here and now either.
Click to expand...

Assuming the accuracy of this report, God bless Team Radio for their noble intentions, but buckling to the shrill cry of these hooligans will only encourage more bad behavior. I agree-- appeasement doesn't work. It didn't work against the encroachment of Nazi Germany. It won't work against the hate-merchants of Westboro.
 
A few well placed drops of methyl mercaptan upon their protest area shortly before their protest will bring the gas police. ;D
 
TomZ said:
A few well placed drops of methyl mercaptan upon their protest area shortly before their protest will bring the gas police. ;D
Click to expand...

I Doubt it. Pepper Spray didn't work on the OCCUPPY-ers. Sort of like spraying RAID on cockroaches; they'll scatter, then return.
 
If I was running team radio I'd time-compress Westboro's announcement down to three minutes where it sounds like the end of a bank commercial. ;D

It's getting worse, I'm just afraid someone (an old veteran or biker) will finally blow their top and hurt one of them, and they do protest with their kids.
 
jfrancispastirchak said:
TomZ said:
A few well placed drops of methyl mercaptan upon their protest area shortly before their protest will bring the gas police. ;D
Click to expand...

I Doubt it. Pepper Spray didn't work on the OCCUPPY-ers. Sort of like spraying RAID on cockroaches; they'll scatter, then return.
Click to expand...
The threat of a NG pipeline leak is reason enough for local emergency peeps to close-off an area.
 
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