MPB: Terry Gross is gross

Mississippi Public Broadcasting's executive director issued a statement to explain why the station dropped "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross: Apparently Terry is just too damned filthy.

Here's the statement (via Gawker):

Mississippi Public Broadcasting strives to deliver educational, informative, and meaningful content to its listeners. After careful consideration and review we have determined that Fresh Air does not meet this goal over time. Too often Fresh Air's interviews include gratuitous discussions on issues of an explicit sexual nature. We believe that most of these discussions do not contribute to or meaningfully enhance serious-minded public discourse on sexual issues. Our listeners who wish to hear Fresh Air may find it online.

Local radio stations can choose to broadcast whatever shows they want, but one has to be slightly deranged (or willfully ignorant) to describe "Fresh Air" as "too often" including "gratuitous discussions of an explicit sexual nature." Indeed, once seems to be "too often" enough for MPB. It was a portion of an interview with comedian Louise CK that seems to have triggered the whole hullabaloo. Here's the exchange (again, via Gawker):

Louis CK: But if I'm with a woman and she wants to be with me, she must like me. I definitely have sex with my T-shirt on, always. I haven't had sex without a shirt on, God, since I was about 23."

Terry Gross: Is that true?

Louis CK: Yeah, I just don't think that's fair. I mean, you know, let her think she's with somebody decent, you know? ... I do have sex sometimes on the show, and there's a rule that I have to be on my back.

Terry Gross: Why, because your stomach flattens?

Louis CK: Well, no, God, no. I'm not laying back in that bed thinking, "I look awesome right now." It's because I think I should always be the victim of the sex. I don't think anyone wants to see me looming over her. I think that's an upsetting image. And then also, the mother-dog stomach that I get when I'm ... you get the point.

Get me the smelling salts!

Mississippi public radio doesn't like Fresh Air

The station director at Mississippi Public Broadcasting has dropped "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross from its lineup, citing "recurring inappropriate content.” It's a given the content is recurring, but inappropriate? A blogger called A Unitarian Universalist Minister In The South thinks recent programs dealing with homosexuality might be the cause:

Couldn’t possibly be the interview with Colin Firth regarding his role in “A Single Man.”  He plays the part of a gay man grieving the loss of his partner. The story line of grieving the death of a loved one is as old as the story of David and Jonathan in First Samuel of the Hebrew Scriptures. And it certainly could not be the movie review of Cholodenko’s “The Kids Are Alright.” That story line of parents dealing with their rebellious teens goes all the way back to Adam and Eve.  Oh wait, the parents are both lesbians. Nah, it couldn’t be that.

(found via Romenesko)