Last term, one of the more engaging controversies on campus concerned the radio station KUGN and a couple of syndicated shows they broadcast. For a few years now, the station has paid $1 million to the University for the privilege of calling themselves “the voice of the Ducks” while also airing the shows of Michael Savage and Michael Medved, “shock jocks” who, in lieu of any constructive political ideas, spout offensive tirades against minorities.
Over the break, Savage’s show, “The Savage Nation,” was quietly dropped from the KUGN lineup. We did not, nor did anyone else in the campus community, call for Savage to be removed. However, we are also not going to lament this turn of events. Savage was not representative of what “the voice of the Ducks” stands for.
We do have to ask though, was this a purely voluntary act on the part of KUGN? We would like to believe it was, yet we cannot help but fear that might be naive. The University, already stung by the “O” logo fiasco, reaped a harvest of potentially bad press from us, The Register-Guard and other local media outlets for appearing to side with Savage and Medved. It is not too far a leap of logic, although it is purely speculative, to envision the Office of Strategic Communication exerting a little pressure on the station to diffuse the problem.
Most importantly, though, how does this change things? With Savage gone, we are concerned that the situation could go back to the status quo, with no examination of how we should examine those who pay the University hard cash to use the University’s name and prestige. Should the University — as the administration seemed all too eager to do with KUGN — allow anyone with enough money to use our image?
What if next time, with respects to Cheyney Ryan, it’s a college porn Web site? How about a cigarette manufacturer? What if they’re willing to pay $50 million per year to promote themselves with the University’s name and image? Should they be subject to the same policy statements as every other part of the campus? How would this be implemented ? And would such a protocol have its own pitfalls?
This is a debate that has been too long in coming to Johnson Hall. How does the University negotiate when businesses want to use its name or image? We hope that President Frohnmayer — and the rest of the campus community — will give this question serious consideration, before we end up with the “Official University of Oregon Sorority House Shower Webcam — Home of the Wet Ducks.”