Jimmy Valentine Takes Clear Channel Test (March 27, 2004)

**EVERYBODY AT CLEARCHANNEL IS TAKING A TEST.word all over the hallways. It's an online test about something called "Responsible Broadcast Initiative" Like the gummint they refer to it as the RBI. Clues you right away that this is something stupid. But it's required.

What happened is after Janet Jackson the gummint put on a real stern face and started kicking broadcast butt. Clearchannel got fined a bunch of money for some talk show host someplace called a "Love Sponge." Maybe it was just the guys name that caused the fine, we don't know. Anywho because Janet does the breast exposure and the Sponge does whatever he does the entire CC corporation figures it's time to suck up to the gummint big time.

So here in River City we have to take a test. Little did I figure that Janet's breast would actually touch my life but here tis. Haven't taken the test yet but management is real frisky and marking off names as folks take the test. We guess as you log on to take the test on the CC computer they get a report on if you took the test and whether you passed or not.

Haven't probed a lot but I guess if I fail the test I have to go to a re-conditioning camp and have wires attached to my head. So far nobody seems to have passed the test 100%. Must be some real tough questions. We didn't get no study book so I don't know how to prepare. But as I read the MEMO I learn that there is actually online training to teach me about indecent broadcasting. (30 years in broadcasting and I'm forced to take a test on decency.oh well)

And one of our suits has adopted a slogan that he uses in like all his current rash of memos. Two memos in recent days utilize the phrase: "If you do not complete this training, you cannot do your job and if you cannot do your job you cannot work here" (just a tad threatening, Yikes).and then the same phrase turns up in the suit memo about mandatory reading of CC email each day. Demands that we read CC email daily. "arrive 5 minutes before your shift so you have time to do it" (they want you to read the email on your own time..where's my union rep?).and then the slogan line pops up again," If you do not check your email when you first arrive, you cannot do your job and if you cannot do your job.etc" Not a real catchy phrase but it does have a kind of Storm Trooper flavor to it which I find clever if not amusing.

I never check the CC email. ROGER discovered email and the internet and web sites about a decade before Clear channel (actually while we was owned by Gannett) and thus we have our own email system and web/computer system separate from the CC. (American Digital Network has been our provider since day one). Anywho all our email comes into a different account and we check the heck out of that all day long. We get important stuff there.from you, from sources, from contacts and like that. I don't know how to get into a Clearchannel email place. But I guess they have been sending me stuff. If I open the CC email (assuming I learn how) won't it all pour out at once from like 5 years worth? And you gotta expect that most of that email is threatening suit memos (if you don't do your job and like that). If I want to be threatened I can go home to the Missus, right?

And I may be able to get out of taking the test since I don't do any serious stuff on the radio.I kinda clean up around the office and give out free chocolate and every now and then I take a load of books from the office up to Escondido Charter High School. Maybe I don't need the RBI treatment? I don't like the thought of wires poked in my head.

Stay tuned. I think Macarena can pass the test. She's real responsible. I think I am scared.