The Explainer - Them there's fightin' words
Dear Explainer,
An announcer on a Birmingham, Alabama, sports talk show on WJOX 94.5 called “The Roundtable” recently went off on an inexplicable rant on cyclists, which included support for the idea of cars running down cyclists simply for being on the road.
"I wish people would hit them, just clip them and send them flying over their handlebars," he said.
It’s pretty sick and irresponsible for a radio announcer to advocate killing or severely injuring another person for any reason at all.
Jerry
Birmingham, Alabama
Dear Jerry,
Yeah, as a cyclist and racing fan, I am disappointed that broadcasters tend not to do their own version of “dope” testing before letting these characters on the air. I suspect he’d at least test positive for being a dope.
Free speech is one of those things that we all hold sacred until running across a bonehead like this. He serves as a reminder that not all speech is protected. The old favorite example is that you don’t have a right to yell “Fire!” in a crowded theater.
There are limitations when the freedom of speech conflicts with other rights — the right to travel safely on a public road, for example. The announcer’s comments could be classified as “fighting words,” which the Supreme Court says the government can limit. The definition of “fighting words” has been narrowed in the years since the Chaplinsky decision in 1942, when the court upheld the conviction of a street preacher who called a policeman a “racketeer” and a “fascist” for trying to stop his sidewalk sermon. The court said that certain categories of speech fall outside the limits of constitutional protection:
These include the lewd and obscene, the profane, the libelous, and the insulting or "fighting" words those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace. It has been well observed that such utterances are no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality.That’s a pretty darn restrictive interpretation, and a guy calling a cop a “racketeer” or even a “fascist” seems pretty tame. Indeed, the definition of what constitutes “fighting words” has since been narrowed. In 1971, Robert Cohen entered a public building wearing “Fuck the Draft” on the back of his jacket and was promptly arrested. The Supreme Court, however, found that Cohen was exercising his right of free expression (remember, it was 1971 and he was 19, and thus had a reason to have an opinion on the subject). The high court overturned his conviction and reversed some elements of that earlier Chaplinsky decision in the process.
But the court continues to look to Chaplinsky for guidance when it comes to words whose “utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace" — in other words, real honest-to-God fighting words that promote acts of violence, like those spoken by your local sports radio guy. That speech isn’t necessarily protected.
So what? Our Birmingham broadcaster isn’t in jail, nor has he been fined by civil authorities. You do, however, have some recourse. WJOX is owned by a large media company known as the Citadel Broadcasting Corporation. The company owns 165 FM stations and 58 AM stations. Headquartered in both New York and Las Vegas, the company merged with Disney and ABC and can be considered as one of the country’s biggest broadcast conglomerates.
You can most certainly voice your concerns to the locals at KJOX in Birmingham, or you can contact the parent company.
Note: Since posting this column, I received a nice note from another reader in Birmingham, local attorney, Jacob Tubbs.
Thanks for your VN column today about fighting words and WJOX in Birmingham. I’m a lawyer and bike racer (not necessarily in that order) and am one of the people who first kicked the metaphorical hornet’s nest to get the bike community fired up about the WJOX nonsense.To their credit, the station reacted swiftly and appropriately — first with a somewhat halfhearted apology, later with a more full response that includes airing interviews with a rep from League of American Wheelmen and (Friday) a local attorney who specializes in bike vs. car injury cases. The DJ involved, Lance Taylor has sent several apologetic communications and made it clear that he realizes the comments were inappropriate.
So, that leads me to ask you: please encourage readers not to barrage WJOX with nasty responses.
They have addressed the problem, and while it doesn’t excuse their initial outlandish remarks, it does go a long way towards healing the wounds and promoting education and awareness among cyclists and the community at large. I’d hate to see that undone by a backlash from an (understandably) angry VN readership that only heard half the story.
Thanks again for your column, and please keep up the good work.
Jacob Tubbs
So, let’s give credit where credit is due: First, to the local Birmingham cycling community for responding as quickly as it did and second to the local station for taking those initial steps. As always, I would encourage anyone who chooses to contact the company to be courteous and professional.
So what can you do, aside from contacting a broadcaster’s corporate masters, if some other bonehead on the radio makes a similarly incendiary remark? (It has been known to happen.)
It would help if you knew the exact date and time of the broadcast and could provide at least a general summary of the comments and the context in which they were made. Because just like WJOX has an owner, that owner has a boss of sorts, and — indirectly, at least — that boss is you.
WJOX is like any other broadcaster in the U.S. in that the station holds a license to transmit over the public airwaves. That license is granted by the U.S. government through the Federal Communications Commission. Send them a letter and let them know that our airwaves are being abused by a private broadcaster. Those comments are considered — and maybe even taken to heart (if we're lucky enough to have a bike geek reading them on the other end) — when WJOX’s license comes up for renewal. The FCC is obligated by statute to review local listeners' comments and even gauge how the station lives up to its “community service” obligations. License renewal is a good time to let the FCC know how a broadcaster falls short on that front, too. Comments that come in during the life of a license are kept on file and become part of the record reviewed at renewal time.
In a case like the "Roundtable" comments, the most appropriate course of action would be to fill out an "FCC Form 2000E," the general media complaint form. You can do that on line by clicking here. You can also send letters via traditional mail to
Federal Communications Commission
Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau
Consumer Complaints
445 12th Street, SW
Washington, D.C. 20554
Again, even though this stuff might get you foaming-at-the-mouth mad, try to be as courteous and professional as possible when communicating with either Citadel or the FCC. If nothing else, it will provide a stark contrast between you and the guy who made those idiotic remarks in the first place.
Dear Explainer Guy,
What in the world goes on with professionals of late that there are so many accidents away from actual racing? First to mind was a few years ago with Floyd Landis and now Saxo Bank this year is plagued with Fabian Cancellara and Fränk Schleck being out. It’s one thing to go down in the midst of a race, but to lose it when out training by yourself on a corner? Come on guys, take it back a notch. At least they aren’t getting hurt out partying … or perhaps that is what’s happening and the PR department is putting a spin on the “mishaps!”
Matt Gibble
Broomfield, Colorado
Dear Matt,
It’s actually a matter of time spent on the road, Matt. If you exclude the grand tours, most riders will spend significantly more time on the road training than they do racing. Given that the number of accidents is still greater during races, training is still a safer way to spend your time.
As for riders taking “it back a notch,” there is a pretty sound argument in favor of riders having to push the limits even while training. I personally would be much more comfortable dropping down a steep descent with a guy who knows what his limits are than someone who tries to push the envelope only during a race. That’s actually a scary thought.
Explain this:
Why do professional cycling teams allow cyclists to train without helmets? It seems to me that it isn't a very responsible thing to do because of the safety risk to the individual cyclist and the well-being of the team. If a team member is hurt in a training accident — and that has happened — it can negatively impact the team's capability of doing its job, which is winning bike races. I know this might be a trivial question to some, but I'm sincere — I always wonder why?
Thanks,
Keith Spangler
Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania
Dear Keith,
Sending me the easy questions, eh? Actually, I have no sound explanation as to why. Some folks simply enjoy the feeling of riding without a helmet and will do so unless forced to do otherwise. Some teams do require riders to wear helmets whenever they put their foot to a pedal, simply because those teams are protecting their investments. Others leave the decision up to the rider, who may be viewed as being skilled enough to avoid trouble, especially when riding alone or in a smaller group.
You might disagree with that assessment and so do I. I started racing in the days when helmets were largely ineffective and optional in the pro ranks. For those of us who were amateurs, the rule was that you had to wear a helmet, but they didn’t exactly have standards in those days and what passed for a helmet was … well, our joke was that our old leather “hairnets” didn’t provide protection, but they did provide a convenient package in which to deliver your remains to your family. I’m just happy not to have suffered a crash in which I landed on my head during a race. That said, four days in a hospital and a concussion serious enough to have knocked me out for 45 minutes — due to a commuting accident 25 years ago — turned me into what my kids call a “helmet Nazi.” Helmets are much better these days and some of the best are as light as those old leather things we had. Fortunately, they are also now mandatory in all racing disciplines.
I also understand that there are a lot of people who think helmets are a big waste of time and money — the bicycling version of the “Helmet Laws Suck” motorcycle crowd. Well, after having a nice dinner with Saul Raisin at the Tour of California a couple of years ago, I’m convinced.
Saul, quite justifiably, believes that two things saved his life after a horrific crash in the Circuit de la Sarthe in 2006. First is the fact that one of the world’s premier neurosurgeons just happened to be at the hospital when the cerebral hematoma caused by the crash suddenly became critical. Before that, however, was the fact that he had a helmet on his head when he hit the pavement at more than 50kph.
“They wouldn’t have had a reason to take me to the hospital if I hadn’t been wearing a helmet,” he said.
Words to remember next time you're running out the door without your helmet because you're "just riding down the block."
Email Charles Pelkey
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