The media's indecency dilemma: can public outrage, congressional hearings, and larger FCC fines stem the tide of "indecency" flooding the airwaves?

• Author: Fischer, Raymond L.
• Position: Mass Media

WARS, ELECTIONS and indecency always have divided the American public. Those conservatives who consider much of radio and television broadcasting indecent--even pornographic--would limit the manners, music, dress, and language of the liberal-minded. Most conservatives consider radio shock jock Howard Stern a crude, depraved, perverted broadcast personality, whom the Federal Communications Commission should censor or remove from the airwaves. In contrast, liberals, many of whom believe that anything goes, deem any attempt to curtail speech or actions on radio or TV blatant censorship. They love Howard Stern and unequivocally endorse his programs.

To protect children, Federal law and FCC rules prohibit indecency on radio and television between 6 a.m.-10 p.m. FCC case law defined indecency as "language or material, that, in context, depicts or describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium, sexual or excretory organs or activities." Conservatives termed indecent the sordid halftime spectacle at the 2004 Super Bowl--Janet Jackson's exposure of her breast: the crotch-grabbing, suggestive gyrations of the performers; and the over-the-top sexually explicit lyrics. Liberals, on the other hand, contend that the conservatives have made a mountain out of a molehill.

In any case, members of Congress and the FCC were bombarded with over a half-million calls, letters, and e-mail messages more than twice as many complaints as the FCC had received in all of 2003. This overwhelming reaction marked the breaking point, the proverbial straw, if you will. CBS Affiliate Board Chairman Bob Lee emphasized the complaints he received came not from "the screamers or the hard-core fight ... but from the mainstream." increased examples of media indecency have prompted up-in-arms audiences to demand the FCC and Congress take action.

Because the FCC has been reluctant to fine what some consider obvious examples of indecency, the FCC's Gloria Tristani made the commission's lax enforcement of indecency restrictions her mission as early as May, 2000, and Michael Copps took up her cause when he joined the commission in May, 2001. In the late 1970s, the Supreme Court approved an FCC crackdown over George Carlin's radio monologue on the "seven dirty words" supposedly banned on public airwaves: however, in the late 1980s, the FCC weakened the restriction with a subjective consideration of the context of a word or action. In April, 2001, the FCC issued its long-delayed guidelines to help broadcasters understand indecency restrictions, and eventually it leveled various fines for indecency and threatened some stations with license revocations.

In late 2003, the FCC proposed its second-ever fine for indecency TV programming against Young Broadcasting's KRON-TV in San Francisco, when a member of the Puppetry of the Penis troupe exposed his "puppet." Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) told the FCC that the networks themselves "told us that the fines [maximum $27,500 per incident] were not strong enough." Harry Pappas, chairman of Pappas TV in Visalia, Calif., wrote to House members complaining of the FCC's loose enforcement. When rock singer Bono of the band U2 used the F-word Jan. 19, 2003. on the Golden Globe Awards program that attracted 20,000,000 viewers--the FCC received thousands of complaints and even more when it termed Bono's F-word "'fleeting, not indecent, because it was used as an adjective." The Supreme Court prolonged the indecency fight when, in June, 2004, it blocked enforcement of Internet pore restrictions by mandating the use of the least-restrictive measures against violators.

Public outcry

Public response to the Super...