Albany Times Union article on gang radio shout outs from February 21, 1998:

STATION STIFLES GANG `SHOUT-OUTS’
Colonie Siena College’s WVCR forbids dedications with phrases touting certain groups
ELIZABETH BENJAMIN Staff writer

The volume has been turned off for young radio listeners who Albany police officials say were using a college radio station to promote gang activity.

Siena College’s station, WVCR, was airing live ``shout-outs’’—when listeners call in and dedicate songs or send messages to their friends— during its urban music programs, which includes rap, hip-hop and rhythm and blues. Some teens were using the free airtime to tout their gangs, according to Albany City Police Lt. Christian D’Alessandro. ``Middle school-aged kids were shouting out gang call-signs and gang letters,’’ D’Alessandro said. ``It was all over the air, which glorifies and propagates gang activity.’’ At D’Alessandro’s request, in December the 25,000-watt radio station— 88.3 on the FM dial—stopped airing live shout-outs during the urban music shows. The programs are broadcast from 6 to 9 a.m. and again from 3 to 9 p.m. Instead, disc jockeys are screening the shout-outs by taping and reviewing them before airing them, said Bill Sherman, director of campus programs. Some of the kids calling WVCR were members of juvenile gangs, or what some experts call ``near-gangs,’’ not the more well-known hard-core gangs like the Latin Kings or the Bloods, D’Alessandro said. A school security guard heard the youths’ shout-outs on WVCR and alerted the police. Now, Sherman said, DJs keep a sharp ear by using a list of gang-related acronyms or slang provided by the police. Anything that contains questionable phrases isn’t played, Sherman said. ``They gave us a bunch of the codes so our jocks and the general manager would know what to look for,’’ he said. ``This was a good opportunity for us to change our shout-out policy anyway. We don’t want it live, having people say anything they want.’’ Most radio stations do not broadcast live shout-outs. At Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s radio station, WRPI (91.5), two disc jockeys—DJ Toast and DJ J. Swift—take dedications and shout-outs from callers during their urban music shows. The DJs read callers’ remarks on the air and edit out anything inappropriate or gang-related, said Chris Connelly, 20, an RPI student and DJ at the station. Since WVCR stopped live shout-outs, D’Alessandro said he has only heard one gang name on the air, which ``probably slipped through.’’ ``They were 100 percent receptive to our request (at Siena),’’ D’Alessandro said. This isn’t the first time WVCR has altered its programming. On Nov. 7, Siena banned heavy metal music from its radio station after 10 years of sending it out over the air waves. College officials defended their decision amid cries of censorship, saying heavy metal music wasn’t consistent with the school’s Franciscan tradition.
(February 21, 1998: Albany Times Union article on gang radio shout outs..)