Dump unclear FCC obscenity rules
Cher accepts a lifetime achievement award in Las Vegas during the 2002 Billboard Music Awards show. During the show Cher used profanity. The Supreme Court heard arguments in a First Amendment case that pits the Obama administration against the nation's television networks (Dec. 9, 2002). Credit: AP
Government regulation of cursing and nudity on broadcast television is a relic of a time when broadcast dominated the media universe. Now that viewers have a wealth of unregulated options, such as cable and satellite television, broadcasters should be allowed the same freedom those portals enjoy.
A broadcast license does come with an obligation to operate in the public interest. But it's difficult to see the public interest in scrubbing broadcasts clean of cursing -- for instance, the entertainer Cher's expletive on a 2002 awards show -- while the same and worse flows freely into homes via cable and the Web.
That's what Fox TV argued before the U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday in a case challenging the Federal Communications Commission's authority to levy fines for what is considered vulgar if broadcast, but is constitutionally protected speech in other media.
When the court upheld the FCC's authority to restrict broadcast speech in the famous 1978 case that involved "seven dirty words" uttered on WBAI radio by comedian George Carlin, its decision was based on the pervasive nature of broadcast media and its accessibility to children. Now the words are pervasive.
The FCC's decency standards are also intolerably vague. It found nudity in "Schindler's List" acceptable, but not on the network series "NYPD Blue."
The FCC insists context matters. It does. But so do changing times.
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