U. S. Radio (Jan-Dec 1960)

lions, heavy driltiiis^, school (losings, (aiuellin^ ol iiicctiiii^s, among others. Kiiox\ille, Tenn., was hit l)\ tlie hardest sncnv ol the winter on March 9, I960. By five in the morning, o\er five inches ol snow had tallen. By 6:"M) a.m., W'BIR Knoxville rejjorts that it had data on everv school closing in the area, all street and highway conditions, special recjiiests ot officials and special reports on the weather. Bv 7 a.m.. the station was airinsj reports on store closings and hundreds ol announcements trom many ditterent groups and organizations. News siunmaries and bulletins were broadcast throughout the clay pro\icling up-to-the-miniue inlorniation al)out the storm conditions in the comnumitv. Located in a severe weather area, KPAC Port .\rthur, Tex., states that it is equipped with its own ]K)wer generator in the event of a commercial ciurent laihne. The station believes that it was one of the k'w, it not the only one, on the air when the area was hit \ery badly by a hurricane a few years ago. As a residt ot the emergency poAver, the station was a])le to keep a flow ol inlorniation going to the conununitv dealing with weather conditions, evacuation plans and similar data. In late March, severe Hoods hit five states covered by \VNAX Yankton, S. D. The station sent reporters to the scenes of the flood to record direct reports, and c()\ered many areas by telephone. Flood reports were broadcast throughout the day lor the entire week of emergency, often breaking into sustaining ar.d com ^Ak ON-THE-SPOT reporting takes newsman Bill Lonqworth ▼▼▼ (I.) of WGBI Scranton, Pa., to the scene of the Knox nnine disaster at Port Griffith, Pa. Here he stands, mike In hand, by side of WSBI patrol car, interviewing a Civil Defe-.se representative about tha fast-breaking news story. These are the things that matter most to me... "My children...'' PORNOGRAPHY: THE BUSINESS OF EVIL "/ think he got his ideas from that hook that night." "The books you can get five for a dollar . . . you can always buy the pictures easy." "...involves chainings, beatings .. .masochistic practices you woidd find in a glossary of abnormal psychology." "The national syndicated smut racket grosses approximately half a million dollars a year." Obscene books, literature and motion pictures have been flooding the nation since the end of the war. To find out just how far this racket ate into the life of Boston, "capital of U.S. morality", WBZ News Director Jerry Landay and his staff spent months researching pornography in Boston. They taped interviews with members of Boston's Vice Squad, the D.A.'s ofl[ice, parole boards of detention centers . . . with men, women and children personally involved . . . and edited the tapes Broadcasting is most effective on stations that have earned the respect and confidence of the communities they serve. into "Pornography: The Business of Evil", an hour-long program shocking in its revelations of degeneracy. The smut racket knows no barriers. Wealthy homes and w'ork-a-day homes . . . highly educated and illiterate people have all dipped into this morass of filth. Most disconcerting, however, were the pitiful experiences of five and six-year-olds exposed to decadent photographs and forced into awkward situations and moral degradation. After hearing the program, Massachusetts Governor Foster Furcolo declared an emergency to put into effect immediately a new law establishing heavier penalties for violation of the state's obscene literature curbs. The Boston Federation of Organizations, representing 140,000 members of 52 women's clubs, organized an all-community roundup against pornography which is still in progress. WBZ -WBZA BOSTON U. S. RADIO • Mav 1960 35