Re: Broadcast bulletins to alert Mainers to child abductions

[Jeremy Mixer <mixer@zoso.net>]

On Wed, 21 Aug 2002, Garrett Wollman wrote:

> <<On Wed, 21 Aug 2002 15:51:36 -0700 (PDT), Cooper Fox <fox893@yahoo.com> said:
>
> > This may have already brought up on the list but...  I
> > was talking with some friends earlier today and the
> > major question was, "Are there more abductions?
>
> The answer (at least for the most recent years for which crime
> statistics are available) is a resounding ``no''.  Child abductions
> have been relatively constant for a long time.  The current media
> frenzy has to do with the lack of interest on the part of the commercial
> media in reporting substantive news.  Last summer, it was shark
> attacks.

While I completely support the EAS alerts for missing children (first a
word about that)-

-These are children whose lives are in danger. Granted not alol of them
will end up dead, but many will. NO CHILD deserves this. Hell no person
does period. But children especially, because they have their whole lives
ahead of them. And the worst part is, children are a lot easier to
manipulate, or hurt (physically or mentally) then most adults. I think
almost every single one of us (with the exception of some I'm sure who
were less fortunate) look back on our childhood and view it as the best
time of our life. When the most stressful thing was an upcoming math test.
When money really had no value. When a busy afternoon was being out in the
woods trying to dig a hole to China. When your imagination would run wild
with ideas, and if you and your friends were bored, you'd easily create
something to do, even if no one had done it before. When someone swearing
(especially if you heard it in school!) was just as hilarious as a fart.
When because no one slept with anyone, there wasn;t the gossip about who
slept with who and who cheated on what and who raped a horse. When you
didn't question the music you heard on the radio, it was just that,
music......the words meant little or nothing. Granted we all had memories
from our childhood that we don't wish to keep. However, for the most part,
these re the memories that will last a lifetime. Imagine being robbed from
them and never getting to expirience them?> Bleak picture isn;t it?

OK that being said, lets get back to the topic on hand...the media.
Garrett- you are completely right about that. And I have to say that while
I don't know what alternative there is, it always bothers me that when one
major type of news is not going on, the media finds another one and is
constantly leaving the public at edge. Everyone is aware that child
abduction has always been a problem and always will be a problem. More
often then not it happens during the one second a parent turns their back,
or even worse, when people break into a home and the parents are asleep.

But a year ago, other then Jon Benet Ramsey (a story that still isn't
completely dead, especially in the damn tabloids) the media wasn't
focusing on any of these child abductions. As Garrett pointed out, it was
shark attacks. Once again, a small problem that will always occur that
people are aware of, but the way the news media coversed it, it was as if
they were saying that it happens all the time. Sepotember 11 happens and
that's all anyone cared about, and rightly sso. I cared about nothing else
for over a month after that.....which prompted me to create a mailing list
for Sept 11 discussion to keep it off this list as well as the Led
Zeppelin list that I help run from here on zoso.net. Because people were
complaining, because some got sick of it. And as less and less started
happening, MSNBC started to go back to their regular proghramming and
people went about their normal business....and then the news media starts
focusing on kidnapping, A PROBLEM WHICH IS NO MORE A PROBLEM NOW THEN IT
WAS 10 YEARS AGO.

So you read this and you wonder how can I say all of this and still
support EAS alerts to help find kidnapped children?  That's a very good
question, and no matter what I say, some of you are still going to feel I
am being hypocritical. And you are entitled to that opinion.

The news media picks out one or two kidnappings that are mysterious and
make them the giant headlining story. When the truth is, this is going on
all around us. I thought it was pretty sad a few weeks ago when I saw a
poster for a little girl that had been missing from the Bangor/Brewer area
for a week or two, and yet the headlining story on the local news was a
kidnapping that happened 2000 miles away. THE LOCAL NEWS. WHY SHOULD WE
CARE MORE ABOUT THAT KIDNAPPING OTHER THEN THE ONE THAT IS HAPPENING RIGHT
HERE IN OUR LOCAL COMMUNITY?

By using EAS alerts to help to find these children, we will be doing more
then putting those signs on the door of the local 7-11 and Shop n Save.
With corperate radio being the way it is today and many stations having
automated stations, with satellite morning shows in the morning and the
rest of the day having jocks  that are to read a liner card and stick to
the card 100%, how can a station do their job to help out in situations
like this? They can't. Unfortunately, we have to settle on EAS alerts to
do this. And luckily, THOSE can do the job.

I remember a situation one night in which Tony Randazzo received a call
from (Tony you'll have to correct me if I am wrong) a local Taxi company
concerning a driver that had picked someone up on Stillwater Avenue in
Bangor (gawd right down the street from me!) and no one had heard from
them since, while he was on the air at WKIT. I beleive Cooper Fox also got
a similar call while he was doing his 80's show on WKSQ (once again
correct me if I am wrong!) Granted, Saturday Nights have a lot of
stations that are live.  and local, however there is still a lot of
automation. In this market, the only stations I know of that are live on
Saturday Nights are WKIT (always live except when having syndicated shows,
in which there is still someone in the studio), WFNX (the only evening
they are live), WKSQ, WBZN usually, sometimes WQCB (when I worked at WBZN
across the hall they were automated sometimes on Saturday nights, not sure
about now) and I know WZON usually has someone in the studio too. That's
about half of the stations in the market. And I beleive that every station
that had someone there, the announcer did the right thing, after receiving
the call from the frantic dispatcher, and made an announcement on the
radio describing the car, it's licence plate, etc.

Several days later, the cab was found, with the cab driver slain , miles
away from Bangor. If I remember right, the person who did this  was found.

It is a well known fact that if you take 100 random people, chances are
they are all listening to many different stations. They are flipping
around. They are listening to what suits their taste the best. They change
the stations sometimes when commercials come on. They sometimes flip
around when the announcer comes on because some people don't really care
what the announcer has to say, they want their tunes. Meaning Tony could
have come on WKIT and as soon as he said "You've got it locked on the
rock...." they flipped over to the another station. (Sorry to pick on you
Tony) Or they could ahve been listening to an automated station in which
no announcement was ever made.

Granted this is not a child kidnapping, however, if there was an EAS alert
sent out, describing the cab, the chances of someone sighting the cab and
calling the police would have been greater. Because people would have had
no choice but to listen, because it would have been broadcast on EVERY
STATION. ALL AT THE SAME TIME. So even if someone flipped the station,
after hitting those presets a couple times they would have realized that
this might be something that is serious, and they would have listened. And
if someone caught it in time, that 50-some-odd year old cab driver's life
may have never been taken.

We have the capability to do EAS alerts, and with all this automation, I
fully beleive that if it was used to it's fullest potential, it would
accomplish a lot more.

Jeremy Mixer