Your Body, Your Choice
The National Association of Broadcasters has sent stations a host of material to use starting today, part of the White House-inspired “national month of action” trying to get you to get a COVID-19 shot in the next month, before Independence Day. They want us to interview experts, run public service announcements, and have program hosts urge you to get jabbed.
You won’t hear any of it on KXEL, or our other Iowa stations, for that matter. That’s because getting a shot is a medical procedure, and it’s not our place to tell you what kind of medical care to get.
You’ve no doubt seen photos of radio and TV folks across the country, proudly snapping a selfie as they got their shot. I don’t think it’s right for a journalist to be advocating in that way; other program hosts, I suppose, can do what they want.
It’s odd that the very political party that wants government to follow the “my body, my choice” standard when it comes to abortion is doing everything from holding lotteries to working to give free beer when the medical procedure is a shot. There are obvious differences, but you get the basic point.
Despite attempts by some to turn this into some patriotic duty…there’s enough uncertainty and deliberately-issued false messages from officials to move this to the “it’s better left to individuals” category.
I am a big supporter of most things the NAB and other similar professional organizations do…but this is not their role, so we’re going to politely decline to tell you what medical procedure to undertake. You can make smart decisions on that without my advice.
