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News San Diego State wary of the Koala By Maggie Grainger February 27, 2006 San Diego--Last October administrators at UC San Diego decided to shut down the school’s closed circuit campus television station after Steve York, a 22-year-old senior, aired a pornographic video of himself having sex with an adult film star. The controversial exhibitionist told Vyuz San Diego back in November that he was “a Larry Flynt liberal…Pornography is the sharpest political tool you can use, and I don’t mind using it in that regard.”
KPBS, the public access channel run out of San Diego State, does not currently have any student-run programs on the channel and it doesn’t have plans to add one anytime soon. Repeated voicemails and emails to KPBS yielded one email response, which stated: “KPBS does not operate in the student-programming domain at all. All of our programming is from PBS and other professional producers and distributors. Students work at KPBS in a wide range of activities but not producing/presenting their own programs.” Greg Durbin, 55, the graduate advisor at the SDSU department of television, film and new media production, said there hasn’t been a student-run television program or station since he started working on the campus back in 1987. “We have produced programming for KPBS both though our Production Center for Documentary and Drama, and through our advanced TV production classes,” he said. “Currently, Professor Tim Powell teaches that class, and has established a connection with them for providing some content to their programming.” While there is no current push for a student-run television station, SDSU students have other avenues to express their views and show their talent. Jon Gold, managing editor of SDSU’s student-run newspaper, The Daily Aztec, and a radio host for the campus radio KCR, believes a television channel would be an asset to the campus and he would be one of the first people to jump onboard. Being in a position of authority, Gold is no stranger to controversy. “I do stupid things because I make mistakes,” he said. “I don’t go out there and intentionally do them – there’s a difference.” He said he thinks York did the porn just for the sake of being shocking and feels his actions hurt not only himself, but the entire UCSD campus. Gold compared the York incident to a scene from the Howard Stern biopic Private Parts where the radio host and his cohorts come up with ways to say words like “cock” and “pussy” on the air. “It’s smut for the sake of being smut and I don’t agree with it,” he said. He also likened the incident to an article that ran in The Aztec on Valentine’s Day 2005. The front page feature talked about various adult sex toys and was “not placed in the right context.” While he claims he is completely against censorship, he does feel there is a time and place for everything. “You have to understand that when people pick up The Daily Aztec, it’s not just students reading it,” he said. “It’s faculty and alumni and the entire community looking at it and we are a reflection of the school.” He feels that every student-organization needs someone calling the shoots. Durbin agrees on the fact that students need guidance, but should not be completely censored. “I am generally quite opposed to censorship,” he said. “This does not mean that I don't think there should be quality control measures taken when selecting programming for air.” As Managing Editor for the paper Gold has had to deal with some controversial pieces, but feels the staff has handled things well. He said one of the most controversial stories was a column which satirized a white supremicist web site’s top ten movie list. The piece, which pointed out the ironies of the group’s selections, was full of red button issues, but higher ups decided it needed work before it could run. “It was an example of how something can be done well, but it just doesn’t belong in our publication,” he said. In the newspaper industry, editors have the opportunity to pick what goes in their publication while in live broadcasting managers play a wholly different ballgame. Gold, who also hosts a sports talk show on KCR, said all hosts signed a form when they agreed to do a show, saying they will not use profanities on the air. While more sophisticated radio stations have eight second delay buttons, KCR deejays must trust their callers not to use curse words. “One guy called in during our second show and said he wanted to talk about Magic Johnson,” Gold said. “When he got on the air he said, ‘Did you know Magic got AIDS by fucking your mom in the ass?’" Gold and his partner hung up on the caller, let the moment sink in and moved on with the broadcast. “You can’t harp on it too much,” he said. Even though live T.V. can be unpredictable, it offers valuable learning experiences for people interested in getting into television. “Live T.V. would be an asset,” Durbin said. “I would say that with good faculty mentoring (or sponsorship), our students would handle a TV station responsibly and with a good deal of skill.” Gold is especially passionate about the idea of a student-run program. “I worked on the T.V. station in high school and it was a phenomenal experience,” he said. He feels that if the broadcast had a supervisor with “common sense,” but who wasn’t a prude, the station could do great things for the SDSU community. “In I Love Lucy, Lucy and Desi had to sleep in separate beds and couldn’t say the word pregnant,” he pointed out. “I’m interested to see where we end up.” -------------------- Maggie Grainger is a freelance writer in San Diego. Suggested Vyuz reading... What it's like to be straight in Hillcrest | By Leopard J. Ferry Erectile dysfunction drugs lift sales in Tijuana | By Larry Knowles San Diego Dolls revive raucous roller derby | By Erin Blakemore L. Ron Hubbard, founder of Scientology, attacked Mexico during World War II | By Larry Knowles The best public places to have sex in San Diego | By Brian Swarthmore Top ten things to complain about in San Diego | By Kate Kowsh |
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