Is the FCC Going Too Far?

Dave Stoppenhagen | March 18, 2004
I keep hearing on different radio stations about 0 tolerance and the FCC cracking down on "Shock Jocks". Do you think the FCC is going to far over a stupid stunt, Janet and Justin's halftime show, and do you think this infringes on the first amendment with them imposing restrictions on radio stations?

Melissa Erin | March 18, 2004
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Denise Sawicki | March 18, 2004
Well, at one point I had heard that the minimum fine for a single accidental swear word was going to be $60,000, now I'm hearing it is $275,000? One fine of this caliber could ruin a small, independent radio station. I just don't really understand why a little mistake like not beeping out a swearing caller fast enough should be worth more money than most people will ever see in their lives...

I don't know if they'd actually charge the fine in such a situation but if not, why have the law?

Scott Hardie | March 18, 2004
Like Denise said, this new legislation fails to differentiate between intentional obscenity and genuine mistakes. Any program that takes calls from the public opens itself up to the possibility of foul language being used on the air, no matter how good their screening process. That can't be helped. What can and should be stopped is the intentional disregard for decency standards, such as the famous "wardrobe malfunction," which was obviously staged to shock the audience. We should have legislation that guarantees the original fine of $11,000 for any obscenity, but if an investigation (which should be mandatory for every incident and would be paid for with the fine) revealed that the act was intentional, then it should be boosted to ten, twenty, thirty times that amount. Unfortunately, it's too late for common sense to prevail on this one; the politicians are climbing over themselves to satisfy public demand.

Anna Gregoline | March 19, 2004
Good point, Denise. Am I the only one who finds the constant censorship, especially of bad words, on television and radio to be a strange concept? I can understand banning nakedness on television (although they certainly show a lot, don't they), and I sure wish violence wasn't quite so accepted in our society, but how are bad words worse than the things I just mentioned? What harm do they actually do?

Melissa Erin | March 19, 2004
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Anna Gregoline | March 19, 2004
But what is the harm, as long as you teach your children that it's not something you want to hear them saying? They're going to hear words eventually. I don't know. I think if it was allowed, television and radio would explode with these words, and then tone down. A lot of television is owned by the right-wing anyway, so I think you'd see less than you'd think.

Denise Sawicki | March 19, 2004
I guess one of my problems with the fines is that it seems it would be too easy for the FCC to apply them selectively to stations that they disagree with politically... The guidelines don't seem to be very clear cut and I doubt that FCC officials will be listening to every radio station in the country every hour of the day.

Every station probably lets something questionable on the air now and then. College stations and independent stations with unpaid DJs would probably be more likely to slip up and put on a song with "bad words" in the lyrics, since unlike other stations their playlists aren't planned out in advance... and these are the stations that would likely suffer the most if they had to pay a large fine.

Anna Gregoline | March 19, 2004
I always wonder how they plan or do monitor such things - they can't possibly keep on top of all the media out there, making these policies seem unfair to me.

Anthony Lewis | March 20, 2004
You have to think that most of the entertainment industry is none too happy with Janet Jackson, that's for sure.

Anna Gregoline | March 20, 2004
Well, neither am I. Or with Justin Timberlake.

Kris Weberg | March 21, 2004
I just think it's funny that people believe removing swear words and nudity from radio and TV will keep kids from swearing. When we were kids, that stuff wasn't anywhere near as readily accessible on public airwaves as it is today, but we all seemed to learn "the seven words you [couldn't] say on TV" pretty quickly. For that matter, it was even more heavily censored when our parents grew up -- you couldn't use the word "pregnant" on television in the 50s -- yet I'm guessing they all managed to learn swears and see nudity as adolescents.