cial" at the time. (One aspect of "soul" radio entertainment that has not been degraded is gospel music. Though religious program directors-usually ministers and active church women-often lack professional broadcasting skill, they exhibit a "feel" for their art that R-n-B promoters might do well to emulate.) Until the late sixties, only a handful of "soul" stations employed staffs of trained newsmen. Usually, disc jockeys doubled as journalists, gathering stories solely from teletype clippings (hence the term, rip-n-read). Today, more and more outlets are developing their own local news staffs but, except in rare instances, these staffs consist of only one-to-three reporters (including part-timers), hardly enough to prepare and report significant developments several times each day. Furthermore, some of these enlarged staffs have included, not journalists trained to gather onthe-scene reports, but additional rip-n-read specialists. More than ever before, "soul" broadcasters are turning to the networks for national and international news. And why not? These newscasts usually are offered in convenient, commercially sponsored packages. (These packages also are designed for Top Forty and Country-n-Western radio. Thus, they seldom report the black angle.) Since last year, a few broadcasters have begun subscribing to special black audio services. And for years, Sonderling Broadcasting Corporation's four "soul" stations have capitalized on audio. feed services, free-lancers, and news exchanges with stations across the country to give their listeners timely black-interest reports. By and large, however, the attitude is: Invest as little as possible. Despite black radio's usually pitiful showing in entertainment and news programming, the medium actually is at its worst in the field of public affairs. Officials at few outlets bothered to program public affairs or information broadcasts until a few years ago. Then many scheduled spot community activity or job opportunity announcements and black history vignettes-and began congratulating themselves for their "outstanding" work in the community. Some black-oriented stations have followed their general market counterparts into the talk show area, but with marked differences. Generally, talk programs geared to predominantly white audiences show evidence of elaborate backstage preparation. Conversations are lively and informative; controversy not only is welcomed, but exploited for its audience appeal. Boring is the best word to describe "soul" radio talk many shows. Topics and the persons discussing them often seem to be skirting issues pressing in a particular community. Program moderators and their guests often appear so anxious to stress the "positive" aspects of a situation (instead of at least letting the facts speak for themselves) that they spend entire. programs saying nothing. The few listeners they manage to attract— by slating their public affairs programs for time slots inconvenient to most listeners and then promoting them inadequately, if at all— may or may not tune in for the next broadcast. "Soul" radio broadcasters ask for all sides of various issues, but a number of talk shows have been canceled in the wake of vehement denunciations of the Establishment. Usually, the station chiefs claim they were pressured by balky sponsors. But station employees have been known to refute these claims in private conversations. Also, many of the same allegedly balky sponsors apparently show no unhappiness with the controversy aired over general market media. An indictment of the entire commercial broadcasting industrylevelled by Ben Kubasik, director of the National Citizens Committee for Broadcasting, one of the Nation's leading broadcast reform or. ganizations may apply particularly to most operators of "soul" radio. "They take caution not to give their listeners much of value," Kubasik charged. "The name of their game is: Stay ahead of the FCC." A principal problem with reforming black radio may be the ease in "staying ahead" of the FCC. Most of the regulatory agency's directives to the industry are somewhat vague, obviously in light of the broadcasters' constitutional rights. The performances of most "soul" entrepreneurs have not been in the best interests of the black community, but finding many in technical violation of FCC statutes may require an amazing feat in communications law. The broadcasters even with their baby-step improvements are provided with enough loopholes to keep them in business without serving the public, forever. FCC must find ways of toughening its rules without violating the broadcasters' constitutional privileges. An unprecedented number of broadcast license challenges (reflecting new community aware. ness) since the mid-1960's has cre ated a backlog of FCC cases. Despite the fact that few license contestants have won their challenges, the current trend has prompted FCC to watch more closely how broadcasters discern the public interest. The timing of "soul" radio's new found awareness of public affairs and news coincides with both the rise in community action and the FCC's willingness to weigh all grievances. Promotion of blacks to responsible posts began occurring on a large scale only after the regulatory agency's fair promotions directive of 1968. Clearly then, the FCC must not relax its vigilance on the industry, as many reformers fear it is beginning to do. In 1967, Del Shields took the mantle of NATRA director. He found what he later termed "a social club of process-wearing niggers, who met once a year at a luxury hotel, for annual social and record-promotion activities." Since then, according to Shields, NATRA has been actively concerned with its 500 active and 250 associate members' working conditions and promotion opportunities, as well as their respective employers' responsiveness to the black community. Shields also unveiled plans for broadcasting workshops at several colleges to aid both NATRA-ites and aspiring black radio and TV men. But in many ways, NATRA members' individual efforts to improve "soul" radio could stand improvement, even within the framework of recalcitrant employers' policies. For example, some disc jockeys have learned to wrap musical variety, R-n-B, and information into unique, commercial packages, while others simply poll-parrot everything they've heard from their colleagues. Some announcers are afraid to offer constructive suggestions, even when ideas are welcomed by their bosses. Many blacks in broadcasting are only too willing to catalog the faults of other blacks in the industry, but when confronted with criticisms of themselves, they repeat the white conservative line: "Don't listen to him; he represents only a small segment of the community.' Of the 310 stations that regularly devote some portion of their broadcasting time to black interests, only about a dozen are blackcontrolled. It is true that white station owners have difficulty viewing the world today from a black perspective and responding adequately to black community needs. This can be exemplified by comparing broadcaster's performances with those of black newspaper publishers. away more Even those newsmen criticized most by today's black militants reflected have for years awareness of the total black community than their white counterparts in radio. Black publishers have turned needed revenue to expose crooked business practices, while white broadcasters have accepted ads from guilty merchants with no questions asked. The black newspaperman has often jeopardized his chances to solicit ads from even the biggest reputable dealers, rather than compromise on editorial policy. Undoubtedly, more black radio station ownership would serve to close a credibility gap that seldom has been bridged in the 50 years of commercial broadcasting. Meanwhile, the responsiveness of a precious few white "soul" radio operators proves that whitecontrolled media can serve black interests, if the chiefs will only cooperate. Management can heed the black employees' suggestions that they now dismiss as absurd. Instead of trying to succeed with bargain-basement black radio, they can begin paying their staffers competitive wages, hiring additional needed personnel, and providing the training and expertise that lead to excellence in all broadcasting departments. They can grant their black executives and managers the responsibilities and salaries commensurate with their titles, rather than reduce them to mere figureheads. Many types of motor vehicles are available today, but only because manufacturers had the daring to advance beyond the Model "T" stage. They could have argued that people like the Model “T”, and we'd still be riding in Tin Lizzies. They may balk about Federal safety regulations and all the fuss over ecology, but because they love profits, they will find ways to build safe, pollution-free cars and continue to net millions. "Soul" radio has not advanced far beyond the Tin Lizzie stage, despite the broadcasters' wild infatuation with money. When it does, it will boast a "funkiness" pleasing to the total black community-young and old, moderate and mililtant, learned and illiterate. BERNARD E. GARNETT Mr. Garnett is a staff writer for the Race Relations Information Center in Nashville, Tennessee, and is a former reporter for the Washington Afro-American and Johnson Publications. The opinions expressed in this article are those of Mr. Garnett and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Center. 27 Groucho Marx once remarked that any club which would have him as a member he wouldn't join. Quite apart from his clever jest, there are a good many people around, including some members of restricted clubs, who are not amused by the situation which exists today. These people feel that there is something seriously wrong with the exclusionary practices of many clubs, when would-be members are kept out solely on the basis of their religious or racial extraction, irrespective of their personal compatibility or incompatibility. Such sentiments have been expressed many times in the past; there is nothing really novel about them. But it seems that they have acquired a new intensity, as well as a new respectability, as a direct outgrowth of the contemporary civil rights movement, with the drive to gain equal opportunity for minorities in jobs, housing, education, and public accommodations spilling over into the domain of private clubs, too. Evidence has accumulated, for example, that there is a positive correlation between advancement prospects of corporation executives and their acceptability for membership in prestigious city and country clubs. This was the focus of a recent study by Dr. Reed M. Powell, dean of the School of Business at Ohio State University, entitled "The Social Milieu as a Force in Executive Promotion." Some people feel that certain private clubs are actually quasi-public in nature because they are so frequently the setting in which important business and political decisions are arrived at, decisions which may well affect the entire community. Last fall, Sam Massell, Jr., the recently elected Jewish Mayor of Atlanta, had charged while campaigning, "The same men who don't want me to sit in their clubs don't want me to sit in the Mayor's seat." On the other hand, there are also those who, while they personally may question the wisdom or even the justice of discriminatory admission policies, nevertheless uphold the legal right of clubs to discriminate on the basis of freedom of association. What they are saying is that in an increasingly congested and intrusive society, human beings are entitled to create (or find) a sanctuary sealed off at least psychologically from the outside world, where they may socialize only with those whom they choose. And how they choose is nobody else's business. To deny this right, it is argued, would constitute an invasion of privacy. In the dictum. of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg, in his concurring opinion in 1964 in the case of Bell v. Maryland: Prejudice and bigotry in any form are regrettable but it is the constitutional right of every person to close his home or club to any person or to choose his social intimates and business partners solely on the basis of personal prejudices including race. These and other |