"Testing...testing...1,2,3,4..."
No matter what...you gotta RESPECT the microphone!

I once read some broadcaster's biography (can't remember the title) and he referred to a newscaster he once worked with. Just before the live news program went out over the air, all of a sudden, the anchor would erupt into multitudinous SCREAMING profanities and he wouldn't stop until the second he was on the air...then, of course, he would announce, "Good Evening, Time for the News..." and so on and so forth. I guess he had to purge all of that nasty stuff out of his system. I worked in radio, and I would never swear in the control room, even when the microphone was OFF. Uh-uh, NOT ME!!! There's just something about a microphone; you don't want to let your "ugly" side show through (unless you're Howard Stern!).

There are various times in history when profanities have gone out over the air, and I might have actually done that myself. At the little radio station I worked at (my first job out of college), I was doing a rock and roll show, and kids kept calling up and wanting me to play 'this' or play 'that'. I was kinda getting exasperated at all the calls, and after one such call, I slammed down the phone and uttered a fairly juicy profanity. The "cancel" switch on the mike wasn't working right at the time. It later got fixed. Later on, a young girl at the local drive-in restaurant asked me in a roundabout way, "does any swearing actually go out over the air"; I said something like "not that I know of" and beat it outta there. I think I knew what she was asking about, but I didn't stick around to find out for sure.

I once heard a profanity come out over the air on CHRISTMAS DAY one year (no, NOT here in Coeur d'Alene)...I later heard that the radio station had utilized numerous taped programs that day, and that one of the tapes wasn't completely erased before the program was recorded on it. CHRISTMAS DAY! OOPS! I heard it in the afternoon, so perhaps everyone was enjoying holiday dinner with their loved ones, so perhaps not too many people heard it or made note of it. These kinds of things, though, can happen at every level, even in the positions of utmost power...President Bush let one fly when he was speaking informally with Tony Blair, England's Prime Minister at some conference...trouble was, the mike was left OPEN! OOPS! I'm sure we'll hear more about this in the days to come. Speaking from experience, I can imagine ol' Georgie boy felt a bit sheepish when Blair reached over to cut the mike!

So, in the spirit of "all of the above", I present the following photo-satire:

This totally disgusting desecration of all things decent was stolen from www.spokesmanreview.com. It's not their fault.