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| Media groups
fight back against FCC overreaction |
Commentary by Ronn Wynn
May
24, 2004
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It?s taken them
quite a while, but the broadcasting industry has begun
fighting back against the Federal Communications Commission?s
overly broad indecency campaign. As usual, FCC head Michael
Powell has pursued a personal agenda, greatly warping and
altering the agency?s legitimate role as a media watchdog.
Since the infamous Janet Jackson breast-baring fiasco
at the Super Bowl, Powell has railed nonstop against what he
sees as a media obsession with sex and violence and the
negative impact this has on youthful viewers and listeners.
Unfortunately, his heavy-handed methods, in particular
threatening stations with exorbitant fines and issuing public
statements implying that the FCC might soon target soap operas
and afternoon talk shows, reveal someone more interested in
being a de facto censor than seriously addressing content and
quality issues.
Now the conglomerate media seems to
have gotten its spine back. Last month a 24-member group of
broadcast organizations like Viacom, Fox and the Recording
Industry Association of America and artists? unions and free
speech advocates filed a petition asking the commission to
reconsider the ridiculous ruling that fined NBC for the
one-time utterance of U2 lead singer Bono at the Golden
Globes. Anyone watching Bono?s reaction realizes that it
was an in-the-moment utterance, hardly an attempt to put
vulgarity into prime time. The FCC initially didn?t fine NBC,
but changed its decision under pressure from Powell and his
commission cronies.
Robert Corn-Revere, the group?s
counsel, explained the FCC?s strategy in the May 27 Rolling
Stone saying that ?The FCC announced a standard that would
allow it to censor all kinds of things ? anything considered
blasphemous, coarse or vulgar. It puts the commission in the
role of regulating taste.? A separate story in the same
publication revealed how several rock radio stations are
dropping or re-editing songs for fear of not meeting the new
standard. These include Lou Reed?s ?Walk On The Wild Side,?
Steve Miller?s ?Jet Air Liner? and even the Who?s ?Who Are
You.?
?It?s absurd,? Reed told Rolling Stone.
?It?s like being censored by a squirrel. It?s done by people
who are very pious and stupid.?
The FCC action is also
making First Amendment martyrs and sympathetic figures out of
such controversial jocks as Howard Stern, while simultaneously
juicing its popularity and public impact. Stern may have been
dropped by a handful of Clear Channel stations and fined
$495,000 for on-air comments, but his program remains
syndicated on 35 stations nationwide and is now enjoying
banner ratings. Powell managed to get Stern sympathy from
commentators on the left (Al Franken, Michael Feldman) and
right (Rush Limbaugh, Neil Boortz), while turning Stern from
an apolitical radio host concentrating on frat house humor and
interviews with adult film stars into a Bush and FCC basher
reaching 18 million people weekdays on air and another four
million daily on his Web site.
Unquestionably, there?s
plenty of bad taste and vulgarity on the nation?s radio and
television airwaves. But the FCC bull-in-a-china shop strategy
not only hasn?t helped matters, it?s quite possibly made them
worse. By their selective prosecution (for example, ignoring
the hideous conduct and offensive content on reality
television) and misuse of fines as a weapon, Powell and the
FCC have only garnered larger audiences for broadcasters they
claim are indecent while helping ruin what left?s of good
commercial rock radio. Hopefully, the folks at Viacom, the
RIAA and everyone else in this new coalition will take this
fight as far as necessary and get the FCC back in the business
of regulating business transactions, not
programming.
Ron Wynn is a staff writer at The
City Paper.
Read this article
online:
http://www.NashvilleCityPaper.com/index.cfm?section=40&screen=news&news_id=33299
Copyright 2000-2004,
The City Paper LLC. |
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