Muddy rules: when can you curse on TV.

• Author: Walker, Jesse
• Position: Federal Communications Commission affirms right to swear during a newscast - Brief article

IN A RARE move away from stricter regulation of on-air speech, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has reaffirmed the right to swear during a newscast. After the four major TV networks filed suit against the commission, arguing that several recent rulings were "unconstitutional and inconsistent with two decades of previous FCC decisions," the commission reversed an order issued in March 2006: The word bullshitter, uttered in an interview on CBS's The Early Show, is now "neither indecent nor profane" because "it occurred during news programming." In their original ruling, by contrast, the regulators argued that the word was disturbing "particularly during a morning news interview."

In addition to clarifying when cussing is allowed, the reversal seems to establish an agreeably broad definition of news: The interviewee who used the formerly forbidden word was not Dick Cheney or...