A public service ad you can't ignore

The Other Paper in Columbus this week ran this rather one-sided article...

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Without warning, begins the radio commercial, I can strike, shattering bone, tearing flesh. Crippling, disfiguring and paralyzing my victims. I don't discriminate. I don't care what color, creed, religion, shape, size, or even age a person is.

I could get your sister when she's sitting on your porch. Think you're safe at home? Think again. I can get your daughter or son walking to school. I can take your mother on her way home from the nail salon. I can drop your wife while she's pumping gas, just like that….

Hey, I'm a bullet, and that's my job.

Click on the "Read More..." link below for more.

The jarring public service announcement features the voice of Power 107 Program Director Paul Strong. He wrote it after a woman who worked with him at Radio One was shot in the parking lot of the Rhythm & Blues Café in March. Tina Smith survived but is paralyzed from the waist down, Strong said.

Strong and Power 107 DJs Konata, Sean Anthony and Daphne Bell turned out for the mayor's event at the Sawyer Recreation Center Tuesday. Strong acted as an emcee of sorts, introducing the mayor and other officials.

He said the decision to participate was obvious: "If you look around, this is our listening audience core, our future."

The station has been urging listeners to sign a "Posse Pledge," which is basically a commitment to nonviolence. But the radio spots, not all of which feature station personalities, are his most striking effort to break through the clutter.

Strong said he's constantly looking for ways to get through to the 18- to 34-year-old demographic that listens to the urban hip-hop and R&B station.

"If I said something like, 'Hey, this is Paul Strong. Please stop the violence,' they'll say, 'What does he know?' If I have someone like 50 Cent, they'll say, 'He's already made his millions,'" Strong said.

"So we started having a grandmother who has lost a son, or a mother who has a gang member in her family."

"When you hear those messages, that is real."