They'll be hosting a radio block to increase awareness of Shaken Baby Syndrome. Link
Kudos to Boise advocates who helped get it organized, and hat tips to others who've done one: 2009 post, Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Michigan
Want to hear how it works? Tune in today at 5:30 (Mountain Daylight Time) via Internet radio. Link to list of stations (the article mentions 107.1 KTHI).
Anyone else doing radio blocks out there? Leave a comment...
Treasure Valley Radio Stations form Radio Roadblock against Shaken Baby Syndrome
Disc jockey KJ Mac's been on the radio a long time.
"Longer than you've been alive," he said
But he's usually spinning the discs of the Rolling Stones, Stevie Nicks and Journey. Only once before has Mac passed on rock and roll to play a minute of baby-screaming.
That track's enough to make any DJ swear: "Never again."
But it's for a good cause: to raise awareness for Shaken Baby Syndrome. And so, once again, for only the second time in his career, Mac and more than 20 other local DJs will bump the shrieks and wails of a baby at 5:30 p.m. Thursday.
It's called a radio roadblock. And the last time it happened, phones at 107.1 K-Hits rang for hours.
"What's going on with the babies?" Mac mimicked. "Everywhere I go, every station I am listening to babies are crying."
And that says social worker and roadblock organizer Marcia Brothers is exactly the idea.
"If you're having a road-block," she said, "people will try to escape your message by changing the station."
But with 20 different Treasure Valley stations all playing the same thing, there's no way to escape the message.
"I don't think people realize that it just takes one little shake," Brothers said. One little shake, just one time could leave parents holding a dead kid.
Thankfully, Shaken Baby Syndrome's 100 percent preventable. To get that message out there, stations like K-Hits will break from the vocals of guys like Mick Jagger in favor of 50 seconds of very unhappy baby noise.
"It seems like three hours," Brothers said.
"It'll be interesting to see what kind of reaction we get," Mac said.
After those 50 seconds of wailing, listeners will hear a message: "No matter how much she cries. No matter how tired you are. No matter how frustrated you may become, never ever Shake a baby."
