A Guide To WEEI’s Sensitivity Training
By NBP Editorial Board | February 16, 2018, 0:58 EST
Syllabus
WEEI Sensitivity Training
Boston, Massachusetts
Friday, February 16, 2018
Welcome to Entercom’s daylong sensitivity training for WEEI sports talk radio employees. As you know, we will be conducting this training for all staff from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. today instead of broadcasting on FM 93.7.
This document will give you an outline of what we hope to accomplish today, and how WEEI will come out of this session sharper and stronger.
After today, we don’t want any of our employees – and particularly our on-air talent — to be able to say “I didn’t know.”
I. Insults
Do not insult any member of a protected class. These include racial minorities, sexual minorities, gender minorities, Tom Brady, and anyone else selected by Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey.
We recognize that insults are a huge part of sports talk radio, and that you can’t get by without them. But be safe out there, people.
Best to stick to the Yankees, the Red Sox manager, referees, the most recent NFL domestic violence perpetrator, fellow talk show hosts, Pete Carroll, Ron Borges, and Cardinal Law.
II. Accents
Do not do any foreign accents on the air, unless they are of Obviously Non-Protected Classes (ONPC’s).
These include Boston, New York, Chicago, Southern, Texas, Valley Girl, Canadian, Irish (particularly around St. Patrick’s Day), Scottish, English, Australian, French, Italian, Russian, and German.
If you attempt some other accent, and if Maura Healey doesn’t like it, you’re on your own.
III. Research
Starting immediately and going forward, all on-air talent are required to do a minimum of 45 seconds of research per segment.
As you all know, the proximate reason you’re here is that a member of our staff recently attempted a weak Chinese accent when talking about Tom Brady’s agent Don Yee because Yee “sounds like an Asian” to him.
That’s true, as far as it goes. Yee is a Chinese name. China is in Asia.
But Don Yee was born in Sacramento. He sounds like he’s from California.
It took our consultant’s intern about 20 seconds to find these facts out on Wikipedia and YouTube.
The technical term for this sort of broadcasting is not racism. It’s stupidity.
IV. METCO
Just don’t go there.
V. Terrorism
If there’s ever a terrorist attack, do not mention Islam, Muslims, Arabs, or anyone who declares himself an enemy of America.
If you must address it, best to assume it’s a white nationalist.
VI. Guns
When discussing tragedies involving firearms, memorize and repeat the following phrase:
“We’ve got to do something about guns.”
VII. Trump
Do not say anything nice about Donald Trump.
If you want to criticize him, mention his instability, insensitivity, and general unfitness. Acceptable comments include the words “reality television,” “Access Hollywood,” “Mexican rapists,” and “Charlottesville.”
If you don’t want to say anything nasty about him, talk about how he must “stop tweeting.”
VIII. Humor
Comedy is not only difficult, it’s dangerous. Rather than actually trying to be funny, just start laughing, or emit guttural sounds that cannot be discerned as individual words.
If you’re stuck, start talking about food, and how much of it you plan to eat in the near future, and then start chuckling. If your co-host starts talking about food, start laughing immediately.
IX. Women
If you are talking about a woman — any woman — immediately mention how smart you think she is. “Strong,” “impressive,” “well-spoken,” and “perhaps our first female president” are also acceptable terms. Never refer to a woman’s physical features, or even imply that she has any.
Also, from time to time mention how important women’s sports are. An occasional reference to the UConn women’s basketball team will suffice.
Conclusion
You are on notice that we are implementing a new software program (with help from our strategic partners at Facebook) that will turn your words on the air into instant transcripts and then apply an algorithm to test for problematic words, phrases, and themes. We will no longer wait for interest groups, Boston Globe columnists, Margery Eagan, or Maura Healey to alert us to unacceptable things you may say.
Better safe than on local cable access.