God Shed His Grace On Thee

Forcing Censored Content.

It’s appropriate to do some follow-up in the case of specific radio news. Remember a while back, when Jennifer Strange died from water intoxication, after she participated in a contest on the radio station KDND-FM? The story is described in this post (or you can scroll down), but just to give you a refresher, Strange participated in a contest in which the grand prize was a Nintendo Wii. The contest, appropriately titled “Hold Your Wee for a Wii,” required that contestants drink an 8-ounce bottle of water every 15 minutes, and then switch to a 16-ounce bottle every ten minutes, without vomiting or urinating. Strange held out for a long time, trying to win the Wii for her three children by drinking two gallons, but eventually settled on Justin Timberlake tickets when she realized that she could not continue. When she got home, she died from water intoxication on her bathroom floor, only to be found by her mother several hours later.

So there are developments in the story. The district attorney of Sacremento, California, is not filing any criminal charges in the suit that was filed by her widower and children on January 25, shortly after her death. The Sacremento County DA, Jan Scully, stated that there would be no charges due to the fact that Strange had been aware of the dangers in participating in the contest and that she had shown no apparent signs of danger. This holds up, if you’ve listened to the audio clip of the show. Strange only complained of being lightheaded, which doesn’t really foreshadow what actually happened. But on top of that, the eight employees were informed about a case in a fraternity hazing where a boy died from over-consumption of water, giving them fair warning about the dangers of excessive water binging. They still held the contest, and Strange really wanted that Wii. Can you blame her? She wanted to give the most unattainable piece of technology to her kids, and was willing to put herself through hell to do it. That’s what I call a real mother.

But the after effects are so much worse. Strange died. The entire morning staff were immediately fired. The kids were left without a mother. This was some serious stuff. But where was the FCC in all of this? It’s sad to have to relate this tragedy back to radio, but it’s really an opportune time to address the FCC’s agenda. Why wouldn’t they fine the station? The family sent the FCC a letter that asked them to revoke the station’s license. Yea, that’s really harsh, but that’s what constitutes responsibility. They should be punished. But alas, the FCC refrained from doing anything. Absolutely no fine has been issued, and no action has been taken against the station to make them pay (literally and metaphorically) for what they had done. Why wouldn’t the FCC do something? Let’s probe what they have always and recently done to exercise their power.

The FCC has always been a stickler for swears on the radio. Someone apparently has to do it, and since America is so unnecessarily filled with censorship, the FCC has taken on that role. Reviled for their rigidities, the FCC issues massive (we’re talking hundreds of thousands of dollars) fines for a little swear. An example of their iron-grip control over television came when Janet Jackson was exposed during her Superbowl performance in 2004. I remember watching it and thinking “Meh, not that big a deal,” but then came the bad press. And the FCC. The government organization ended up fining CBS $225,000 for the incident. That’s nothing for CBS, but in the real world, the FCC had fined what some people would not be able to make in two lifetimes. I call it unnecessarily harsh. And more recently, the FCC has been exercising their control over internet radio, raising payments that have to be made in order for the stations to operate with morality for their played artists. Even if that means making most stations go out of business. But as long as everyone is being treated properly, then it doesn’t matter.

So why are they suddenly holding back when it seems that this is the perfect opportunity to exercise their fining capabilities? Strange’s death doesn’t need to be avenged, but action should be taken to make sure that something like this never happens again. And the FCC is the only one who can do it. My speculation on the situation is that they don’t want to put an FM station out of business that gives them tons of money each year (the station is quite popular in its broadcasting range). The more people that listen, the more money they dish to the organization, and since the FCC basically exists to extract fines (ok, and maybe keep social morals and ethics intact), they wouldn’t want to hurt a station that forks over cash each month.

This is all unfair. As I come to the end of this post, you have to wonder: is it moral for the FCC to refrain from fining when it should occur, and fine when it really shouldn’t? This type of backwards business is a cramp in America’s side. The FCC is just a gray government organization, and without giving reasons for their actions, they’re only going to get more people that hate them. No wonder other countries don’t respect us; our government is way too political to make our citizens upstanding. Everything is done behind closed doors, and not enough is done to impose a proper sense of morality to the people of our country. Ugh.

Strange’s family plans on filing civil action lawsuits against the radio station’s parent company, Entercom, who they felt was responsible from the start. Their family deserves to get money over any government organization, even though money doesn’t equal happiness. It supports the idea that people should be treated with respect when they are wronged, especially when an innocent death could have been avoided. If our country was based more on that principle, rather than making our pockets fatter, then a heightened sense of morality would spread to more people and our country might gain some respect. But until an organization like the FCC realizes that they are nothing but a bunch of hypocrites, we’re basically stuck living in a land where people can dangle steaks on a fishing pole in front of a starving dog and watch them struggle to get it, all for the sake of entertainment.