Probably you’ll guess the punch line to this story, but it still remains a bit painful after all these years.
My 3rd year in radio, I’m programming a small market station. I had pulled an on-air stunt at the expense of a competing station. But it was good-natured, and it didn’t make them look bad.
As a result, the two owners of the station called me and asked if they could come visit our operation. It was a brother and sister in their ’20s. Their father had bought them a radio station as a gift.
They came to my station, and as I was giving them the grand tour I said, “By the way, who the hell is that woman you have doing middays? She’s the worst jock I’ve ever heard.”
Yep, you can see it coming.
As soon as the words left my mouth, I knew that “worst jock I ever heard” was the sister…to whom I was giving the tour.
An insignificant moment, but one that I still wish never had happened.
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At one of my first jobs there was a news director who told me “Never say anything bad about anyone, that way you can’t be criticized”. I thought then – and still do – that this was singularly bad advice for anyone in a news capacity. However for the rest of us it does make sense when our opinions aren’t really called for. Hard to put into practice when one is used to reacting to things for all to hear.
There is a scene in an episode of “Orange is the new black” where the new inmate is introduced to someone in the prison cafeteria and says offhandedly “the food in here is disgusting” only to find out that the woman she said it to is in charge of food preparation. The new inmate was denied food for days.
I always tell competitors how great their on air talent is. The worse they are on air, the bigger the compliment is. I’m happy that they have them and they’re not knocking on my door, and if they’re that bad, my station is cashing in on their decision.