Radio broadcast .. (1922-30)

AS THE BROADCASTER SEES IT CARL DREHEIL. Why Censorship of Programs Is Unfortunate IN 1923, the New York Times expressed the then-prevalent attitude of broad- casters toward controversial material in the following words: "The radio audience is so large and rep- resents such a varied interest that the censor must eliminate anything which might injure the sensibilities of those lis- tening." Of course if this idea were strictly fol- lowed nothing verbal could be broadcast, except the alphabet, market reports, and bedtime stories for children. If anything has been definitely established it is that some people can manage to be offended, no matter what precautions are taken to keep them happy. The lengths to which they will go, in an effort to find something to become sore about, are almost incredible. One such sufferer recently wrote to a news- paper protesting against the exhibition, in the New York Aquarium, of a jewfish and a porkfish, as a slur against the race of Israel. Maybe some humorist on the staff of the paper wrote the letter, but, if so, he did not carry the idea to a more ab- surd extreme than one sometimes finds in practice. Since 1923 we nave been getting away, to a great extent, from the idea of com- plete, meticulous inoffensiveness in broad- casting. It will take only a few more universal pannings like the one recently re- ceived by the British Broadcasting Corn- pans- when it refused to broadcast George Bernard Shaw's birthday speech unless the author refrained from saying anything controversial, to bring about a sane atti- tude toward this problem. The time of a broadcasting station is worth money, and not everyone can be allowed to broadcast. But when a man of admittedly distinguished sapience and emi- nent position is refused the privilege of talking to several hundred thousand people eager to hear him, simply on the ground that some listeners may not like his opin- ions, the situation becomes so absurd that all sensible people must feel the impulse to throw their radio sets out of the window. Are robust, adult individuals,'who want grown-up intellectual fare and can stand seeing others eat something they may not care for themselves, to be left out of con- sideration altogether? The timorous broad- casters who raise their hands in horror when some Brann of the ether wants to call a spade a spade make me, for one, rather tired. Is life worth living at all if one is always in a sweat about "adverse criti- cism" and a possible brick heaved through the window? It may be to the infirm and the aged, but surely broadcasting is not exclusively in the hands of valetudinarians. And, from the business standpoint, is there not as much danger in boring everyone with a respectable intelligence quotient, by ra- diating only what is dull and safe, as in taking a chance with the "Old Subscriber" and "Pro Bono Publico" class? The present trend toward freer expres- sion on the air will continue, I believe, until one can say in a broadcasting studio what- ever is written by the editors of newspapers, or spoken by publicists, or printed in books. Those who do not like what is said by some speaker at some station will have to listen and make the best of it, or tune-in elsewhere, or retire to the Aleutian Islands, where the seals will not offend them with unwelcome ideas. Whatever problems are raised by a reasonable progress toward freedom of expression, whatever difficulties crop up, whatever the cost of that develop- ment, it is better to proceed resolutely than to be reduced to the ultimate ab- surdity of trying to please everyone in a world full of contention, competition, and diverse opinions. If broadcasting is to reflect life it must accept life. Deterioration of a Word IN THE popular lingo, the word "static" has come to mean simply "noise." Originally the term had a specific meaning in the radio field: disturbance in reception caused by natural electrical dis- charges. That was when radio still oc- cupied her secluded niche in the temple of technology. Then the saint was draggec forth into the market place, and worshippec by the many in place of the few. Th< motley crowd that now pressed agains her lacked the feeling for niceties in defi nition which had characterized the priests and "static" came to be applied to an] racket issuing from a loud speaker. Unde this heading were crowded indiscriminately all the rich varieties of noises, natura and artificial, which radio is capable o producing. Finally, as a figure of speech "static" was lifted out of radio alto gether; the word is now mouthed alon] Broadway by every vaudeville comediai out of a job (or in the job when he ha one), and his wit is copied by all the door openers, taxi-drivers, and waitresses. One a chaste and restricted expression, it nov means anything and belongs to everybody Once a problem which haunted the sleep less nights of great engineers, it now pro vides a derisive epithet for the counties thousands whose brains are never awake. Concerning B. C. Operators IF I may be permitted to intone an ex hortation to my fellow knob-turners o the broadcast control rooms, it will b in the direction of urging them, one am all, to learn something about the quantita tive side of what they are doing. To< many broadcast technicians, when askec how they would accomplish something o other in their business, answer in sucl phrases as the following: "You connec the line to a jj-Z amplifier and the outpu of that goes to a pad and from the pa< you connect to a 23-X equalizer. Thei you also have a 46-PQ monitorinj amplifier and 199538-"^ loud speaker.' And they go on and on, telling how unit are connected according to blueprints without really knowing why and wherefore The actual essential relations of the equip ment, the operating boys tend to leave t< the design engineers. This is all wrong in a number of ways Intricate equipment of the sort used ii