WYBC broadcasts hypocrisy

Bastard Hat
    By David Auerbach

As you've probably heard, Yale's radio station, WYBC, has overhauled its programming schedule by eliminating its rock, blues, and folk formats, thus tossing nearly all of its student members off the air. I won't condemn WYBC's executive board, who made th e decision, for being unethical. You can make that value judgment yourself. But the justifications that the executive board gave for making the changes in such an abrupt and autocratic manner--these things merit a bit of explanation. Not only do they reve al a brutally complacent attitude towards dictatorial business practices, but they also show the executive board to be hypocrites.

The six-person executive board terminated those three formats the same day it announced programming changes, with no notice or consultation of the general membership of the station. The cancelled programming was replaced by "Contemporary Hits Radio" (CHR), which you might know better as "Top 40." In a memorandum sent to all WYBC members by the collective executive board, they said: " ;Our decision to employ a `same day' approach to informing our staff of the programming change is also within the Yale Broadcasting Company's bylaws and is, infact [sic], a radio industry standard. Nearly all radio stations use this approach to minimize t he possibility of disgruntled air personalities from expressing their anger on the air." What they say is true, but the executive board's explanation still reeks of sardines.

The board's cowardly appeal to authority--"Nearly all radio stations use this approach"--evinces a mercenary business approach that speaks very badly of the board. Let's look at a few other turns of phrase from the same memo:

* "Like any other commercial radio station, WYBC must program its schedule with its listeners in mind." Translation: "As ratings are the bottom line for other stations, so they are for us."

* "Our new programming...will provide both [Yale and New Haven] with a consistent radio product." Translation: "The music itself is unimportant; rather, we must package a popular `product' and ship it out to the masses."

* "Our primary goal...is to provide a professional radio environment conducive to training our members for the radio industry." Translation: "Those student DJ's are dilettantes who care more about music than ratings. Let's be professiona l, man."

These statements betray an agenda designed to bring WYBC in line with some supposed real-world "ideal" that is not based in any sort of vision or ethics, but merely the extremely unreliable status quo. One might expect better from ostensibly thoughtful Yalies, but the board takes pains to remind us that WYBC is "i ndependent of...Yale."

Unfortunately for them, WYBC is affiliated with Yale, and has some responsibility to uphold certain values. It has an obligation to reflect that it is run by students who are interested in more than money and ratings: things like diversity, open-mindedness, fairness, honesty, and other fuzzy liberal values that were shot to hell in the business world decades ago, but still linger on tenuously around these parts. But certain executive board members apparently got it into their heads that they could be petty tyrants before even graduating, and naturally looked to "pro fessional" commercial stations for guidance.

The implication is that student-run programming is neither professional nor responsible, something long-debated at WYBC. Comparatively, it may well be true. But as a college station, those above values require the allowance of "irresponsibility&qu ot;--unpopular programming, amateurish talent, and flexible formats--to give students the opportunity and freedom that a "professional" radio station would never allow. Most of the students are not looking to be indoctrinated as radio profession als, and WBYC must accomodate that. Even three years ago, when I served as music director of the erstwhile "Nu Rock" format, there were pressures to be more commercially oriented, as there have been since WYBC's troubled times in the '80s, which were nonetheless the heyday of the station in both community and content. If the executive board sees those things as unimportant, then they aren't just callous, but also naive.

It is even more irresponsible to let inexperienced students run a station they claim should provide a "professional radio environment"--they aren't even professionals! To Program Director Emad Abdelnaby, DC '99, General Manager Mike Corwin, S M '99, and the other students on the executive board: if you are truly committed to your vision of WYBC's future as a professional commercial station, you will resign and turn over your positions to professionals. Not doing so will betray you as hy pocritical opportunists with an inconsistent, self-serving agenda not in WYBC's best interests. With most of the students off the air, the only irresponsible people left at WYBC are the members of the executive board themselves.

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