Supreme Court case tests FCC’s power to police TV indecency
...the Supreme Court is set to hear arguments Tuesday about whether the FCC should still have a role in policing the nations airwaves or whether its indecency regulations violate guarantees of free speech and due process.
The networks have argued successfully in lower courts that in a revolutionized world in which they exist side by side with cable channels that are beyond the FCCs regulation, singling them out is not only nonsensical but unconstitutional.
(...)
The Obama administration is defending the FCCs powers. If anything, it told the court, the new media world requires continued federal oversight of the public airwaves to provide a haven for parents and children from the anything-goes world of cable and the Internet.
(...)
The uniquely pervasive language in Foxs brief comes from the Supreme Courts 1978 decision in FCC v. Pacifica Foundation, in which it...found that the FCC was within constitutional boundaries to police the radio and television airwaves during the times children would probably be listening, which was interpreted as meaning between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m.
(...)
With the right to the public airwaves, (Parents Television Council president Tim) Winter said, come responsibilities.
If they want to be indecent, as weve said in the past, they can wait until 10 oclock and be as indecent as they want, Winter said.
full: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/supreme-court-case-tests-fccs-power-to-police-tv-indecency/2012/01/03/gIQANAEujP_singlePage.html
The article also quoted Winter: "Im a lifelong Democrat; I havent checked a Republican box on a presidential ballot since 1984." Former FCC officials now with the American Bar Association, in an amicus brief filed with SCOTUS, wrote: "The commissions complaints policy has become so artificial that it naturally prompts the question, why does the Commission not simply turn the monitoring function over to the Parents Television Council?" (in reference to PTC's mass-complaint campaigns)
Other background info: in the FCC v. Fox case in 2009, the Sup Ct upheld the FCC's rights to regulate (in terms of administrative law) but deferred to lower courts in regard to constitutionality. The following year, the 2nd circuit court of appeals ruled that the policy had 1st amendment issues. The programming of concern included:
- the 2002 Billboard Music Awards (Fox), where Cher said "fuck 'em" to her critics,
- and the 2003 Billboard Music Awards (Fox), where Nicole Richie said in reference to her reality show "The Simple Life": "Have you ever tried to get cow shit out of a Prada purse? It's not so fucking simple." In both years, the network failed to mute the bad words out of the live broadcast in the Eastern and Central time zones but later edited the show for the tape-delayed Mountain and westward broadcasts.
- the NYPD Blue episode "Nude Awakening" (2003 on ABC) that showed a woman's naked buttocks for 7 seconds. That show aired at 10PM in the Eastern and Pacific time zones (thus exempt from the FCC decency timeslot) but an hour earlier in other time zones.
mr_liberal
(1,017 posts)I think theres a good chance it will. I count 5 votes against the FCC on the court now. The liberals plus Kennedy.
alp227
(31,962 posts)Yeah, it's an extreme example, but regulations are WHY this kind of programming decision can't happen. And I'm alright with the coarser programs being after 10PM and broadcast TV using bleeps and blurs and radio editing cuss words out of songs. But the FCC decisions in the last decade have been so arbitrary and capricious they deserve judicial review, such as the double standard between ABC's "NYPD Blue" getting away with using "bullshit" and the cuss words in the PBS documentary "The Blues". As well as the penalties for the accidental cuss words in the awards shows.
Shouldn't progressives support regulations? If the free market of broadcasting that uses the public airwaves won't be responsible to children, then government should regulate the broadcasters.
backscatter712
(26,355 posts)alp227
(31,962 posts)backscatter712
(26,355 posts)Your fuzzy intuitive opinion that manners have degraded is hardly scientific.
alp227
(31,962 posts)see this law in Idaho: "Every person who...uses any vulgar, profane or indecent language within the presence or hearing of children, in a loud and boisterous manner, is guilty of a misdemeanor." If you or I went to a park where kids are playing and were using words like "fuck" and "shit" in public conversation we'd get disorderly conduct tickets if the parents called the police. I will ask again. The broadcast airwaves are PUBLIC PROPERTY that has the consent of the governed to be regulated just like any other property of the commons like roads, natural resources, etc. Furthermore, the Miller v. California USSC case granted community standards for obscene speech that may not be protected under 1st amendment. Shouldn't the FCC set standards acceptable for all areas of this country including the more blue nosed communities? The airwaves belong to them too, and clearly the free market will always overlook those areas.
Politicalboi
(15,189 posts)From HOME. As in their parents, or older brothers and sisters. TV should be more for adults than kids anyways. If they are going to be more lax, I hope they go all out after 10 pm. The Daily Show should never have to be edited at 11 pm. Too much shit for kids and not enough for adults. Cable companies should start another tier for adults, where your TV is uncensored all the time. I'm not looking for porn, but it is ridiculous that I can't even hear the word bitch or damn or even hell sometimes without it being censored.
alp227
(31,962 posts)then neither can broadcast TV 6AM-10PM, and the broadcast airwaves (defined as the PUBLIC airwaves) should be owned and operated by We the People (corporations are not people). If the left supports regulation of political content through the Fairness Doctrine why not decency too?
The Daily Show is a cable TV show, but cable channels establish their own standards & practices, and Comedy Central shows many uncensored programs including the Roasts or the 1AM Secret Stash or that South Park episode with 150+ uses of "shit".
Gregorian
(23,867 posts)If they cared about children, and about a pure world, they'd stop dropping bombs on people.
I was never so refreshed as when I heard "fuck" on TCM the other night. As though I lived in a truly liberal, free, intelligent society. Not some squelched, phony, dictatorship.
Joe Shlabotnik
(5,604 posts)Heywood J
(2,515 posts)It has nothing to do with children, and everything to do with enforcement of morals on others.
Parents buy games like Grand Theft Auto and CDs bearing the explicit lyrics logo every day for their kids. Play a multiplayer game like Call of Duty online some day: you may be astonished by the number of kids taking headshots at each other or watching the jibs fly as someone explodes, they swear like sailors. Kids use the Internet to discuss who the class slut is or how high they got last night. Latch-key kids have full access to Mom and Dad's DVD collection until they get home from work hours later, not to mention the liquor cabinet, cigarette pack, and more. America has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the western world and our schools have smoke pits outside the front doors. I learned the word fuck and how to use it when I was six years old... from the other six year olds at school in the mid-1980s. All of this, even, says nothing about what they hear from the parents.
But I can't hear Jon Stewart say "shit" or "asshole" at 11:00 at night because it's censored for the next day's re-run and some hypothetical kid, somewhere, might be watching the re-run.
Gregorian
(23,867 posts)And another thing, as you pointed out, children are not children, but small adults. Hell, I was teaching Staford medical interns how to interpret electrocardiograms when I was 16 years old.
That doesn't mean we don't need an educated and structured society. In fact it's just that very thing that will help us to transcend the muck we tend to stay in if we don't grow and expand.
The conservatives are no doubt pulling back toward the abyss of days gone by. What we need is to grow out of the fear that learning is difficult. We need to make learning enjoyable. Teach everything from art history to Calculus on tv. I've been watching engineering videos to catch up with having abandoned what I learned 20 years ago. It's surprising how little there is. Lots of crap, not much on Newton's laws.
It's as though we want to keep children as children. As if by growing up quickly they'll miss some kind of fun. There is no better fun than mature fun. And by mature I mean educated. High level.
I'll admit that I spent years getting high after graduating from high school. I started out good and went the wrong direction for reasons I'm only now understanding. But what i know now, thanks to the internet, is that there are groups having the most fun I've ever known. A keen kind of fun. The kind that the Daily Show staff must be having in their offices, creating those shows. That kind of fun takes a high level of education. Literacy, political, social.
Well, I've got the world's problems solved right here. I'm probably full of crap. But I think I know how to do it. Censoring is only like the drug war. It will ensure that we go backwards.
backscatter712
(26,355 posts)If so, I have something to say to them:
Shit piss fuck cunt cocksucker motherfucker tits
Now we can watch the parents blanche and go apeshit.
But really watch the kids. They'll grow up to be just fine. The constant howling and shrieking about how we must protect kids from words has nothing to back it up.
And without anything to back it up, there's nothing to back up this attack on free speech. I'll say it again. It's about censorship and control, not protection, and for that reason, FCC v. Pacifica MUST DIE!
backscatter712
(26,355 posts)Parents who object to naughty words on TV programs, here's your challenge.
Give me one, JUST ONE scientific study that demonstrate conclusively that children sustain some sort of psychological damage from hearing words like "fuck" or "shit" on TV programs.
As far as I can tell, the worst that happens is that the kids hear the words, start snickering, repeat the words, causing the adults to clutch pearls. Then the kids grow up with absolutely no measurable statistical difference in prevalence of mental disorders, educational levels, careers, etc. when compared to kids who were sheltered from George Carlin's horrible words until they were at least teenagers.
Just one study. Show it to me... if you can find one. I don't think you can.
Short of scientifically and statistically valid demonstration of harm to children, there is no justification for this attack on the First Amendment.
alp227
(31,962 posts)as fillers too. Psychological damage no, intellectual damage yes.