Hard to do when it's everywhere now days. We watched the premeire of the new series "Nip/Tuck" the other day. Won't be watching it again. I lost count of how many times they said "sh*t" on the show. Then they showed the previews for the upcoming season which included bare breasts, a girl's face between the legs of another girl, and other things that, IMO, shouldn't be on regular TV.
Looks like Carlin's list has been shortened.
The FCC has no plan to INCREASE media consolidation. It has plans to loosen regulations regarding media consolidation. Big difference.
And this announcement came at a time when the constitutionality of the FCC's censorship regime is more doubtful than ever.
This author has no problems with the FCC restricting ownership, but questions the constitutionality of its so-called 'censorship'.
less attention has been given to its tough new stance against "indecent" words and ideas.
The FCC's power to censor the airwaves goes back to the beginning of radio,
This "new" stance is more akin to the "old" stance. Where was this published? Pacifica's website?
It is not the job of a bunch of unelected jack booted bureaucrats.
A ``Tony Danza's'' when you grab her by the hair, throw her down on the bed, smack her around a little bit and tell her who's the boss.
Overseer. What about all the nearly pornographic billboards? How do you keep them from that? The more ways I find to protect my children the more ways others find to corrupt them. Billboards, bumper stickers, tee shirts, TV, radio, video games, and email to name a few.
There are two problems with ultimate free speech. The first is directly targeting children with subject matter not appropriate for children, this should be a crime. The other is with the "in your face" free speechers who think that just because they have the right to say something that everyone else including children has to listen and see, or that they should be forced into hearing and seeing it. You have a right to say it, but I should also have the right for my children not be subjected to your free speech profanities. In today’s world your solution of "keep your children away from it" means locking them up incommunicado and it shouldn't be that way.
There should be some decency in this country. But we have become instead of a united people a nation of individuals who care for only me, me, me. Do not be so zealous or so callous in exercising your rights that you hurt someone along the way. Freedom of speech should be a good thing not an abuse of others.
The Supreme Court's 1978 decision in Pacifica upheld the FCC's power to censor broadcasting under the broad, vague "patently offensive" definition. The primary justification, said Justice John Paul Stevens for the Court's 5-4 majority, was to protect children who, he assumed, would be harmed by Carlin's bawdy language. In any case, said Stevens, the government wasn't really banning vulgar speech; it was only requiring that it be aired late at night, when children are unlikely to be listening.When Reagan first took office he began appointing libertarians to the FCC instead of culture crusaders. These appointees believed in minimal government interference with business, whether the business was a grocery store, machine shop, or radio station.The Pacifica decision was indefensible as a matter of constitutional law, but its practical effect at the time was insignificant. Television was already steering clear of the risque so as not to offend any part of its national audience, while radio, which was sometimes more daring, could nevertheless be reasonably safe from FCC sanction if it simply avoided the "seven dirty words" and a few others of similar ilk.
All this changed in 1987, when the FCC, under pressure from the religious right, abandoned the "bright line" dirty-words test and announced that henceforth it would prohibit any broadcast it considered "patently offensive," regardless of specific language or redeeming social value. Again, a progressive, counter-cultural Pacifica station was among the targets of the FCC's displeasure. (It had broadcast a program about gay rights.)
This consistent view was a critical part of the increasing popularity of conservatism among younger people....prudishness was no longer an integral part of same.
-Eric
The fact that Springer is still on the air shows that it takes an awful lot for the FCC to consider something 'raunchy'.