BROADSIDES

March 17, 2004

Censor The FCC
If you pronounce the acronym FCC, it sounds just like the most forbidden word in network broadcasting.

Oh, the irony.

It turns out that free speech opponent Michael Powell (who, contrary to popular belief, was appointed to the FCC by Bill Clinton) and some of his fellow FCC inquisitors aren't content with just violating the First Amendment rights of on-air broadcasters.

Of course, Powell would deny that his Star Chamber-ish persecution of various broadcasters and imposition of grossly vague speech regulations and massive fines violates the First Amendment. He would claim that what he and his fellow speech commissars are doing amounts to cleaning up the airwaves, blah, blah, blah, protecting our children, blah blah blah, helping parents, blah blah blah, upholding decency, blah blah, blah ...

But if choosing the words someone can legally say is not a violation of the constitutional mandate prohibiting Congress from choosing the words someone can legally say, what is??

Now Powell is seizing upon the very controversy that he himself ginned up -- Janet Jackson's costume "malfunction" -- as an excuse to open a new front in the government's war on free speech: cable television. Powell wants Congress to give the FCC authority to censor cable content.

Currently the FCC lacks the power to regulate cable programming content because it's a subscription service and it's not transmitted over airwaves. In other words, where cable content is concerned, Powell and his fellow commissars can't protect our children, blah blah blah, help parents, blah blah blah, and uphold decency, blah blah, blah ...

So, then, since there's no government agency censoring cable programming . . .

. . . why doesn't CNN use topless anchorettes to read the news?

. . . why doesn't CSPAN's Brian Lamb say "Eat shit and die!" to annoying callers?

. . . why does MTV bleep drug references in music videos?

. . . why does the E! channel bleep words that even the FCC allows on the air?

. . . why doesn't the Cartoon Network show Fritz the Cat or those creepy Japanese porn cartoons?

. . . why doesn't Chef Emril Lagasse hump women in the audience and repeatedly yell "BAM!" while waiting on his soufflé to rise?

Why? The answer is the free market.

Basic cable is packed with channels programmed by companies keenly aware that they are ultimately accountable to their viewers. To put it another way, cable programmers' standards and practices are a reflection of their viewers demands and expectations. The result is thousands of hours of programming that's relatively sedate -- all without government censorship and regulation.

Someone should remind the FCC and Congress that the revelation of Janet Jackson's breast originated not on unregulated cable but on FCC-regulated airwaves.

Not only should Congress refuse to expand the FCC's authority over cable content, it should abolish the FCC's authority to censor anything.

In other words, fcc the FCC.

B. Sides @ 10:12 AM