The Ears To The House policy on political matters is quite simple. We understand that music and politics will touch upon each other fron time to time – politics has a habit of encroaching on most things at some point. And unlike other dance music outlets, we accept that perspectives other than our own do exist.
You won’t find us telling you who to vote for in any presidential election. You won’t see us berating people who dared to vote a particular way in a referendum. And in a conflict as long-running as the one in Israel and Palestine, you won’t get any articles blatantly taking one side or the other.
Not least because when you take one specific view, it inevitably alienates those who hold another opinion. This is something which global radio platform NTS Radio – based in London – found out after posting this blatantly one-sided statement on its socials on Friday…
At the time of writing, NTS Radio has received over 2,900 comments on the subject – with more messages coming in from their other social media pages. We feel rather sorry for whoever was managing the socials for the station on Friday – but that’s unfortunately where our sympathy evaporates.
By putting out this statement, NTS Radio shows it has forgotten a central premise of the radio business – namely, that you’re supposed to speak to and for as much of your audience as possible. This audience will likely have a variety of views on the subjects of the day – and alienating them is rarely a tactic that ends well.
It also, to be perfectly honest, smacks of virtue signalling. Announcing that they’re “foregoing today’s planned programming” is something we have no issue with – the station can decide for themselves what they want to air – but this doesn’t explain why their offices have to close for the day.
Why only for one day? It’s now Sunday, and as far as we can see, no immediate end to the current situation is in sight. If they only close the office for one day, literally nothing has been achieved – bar potentially creating more work for the office employees when they return.
Call us cynical, but we fail to see how residents on the Gaza Strip and neighbouring Israel will be moved in any way whatsoever by this kind of meaningless gesture politics. Just saying…
