Three Way News

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Friday, December 10, 2004

Context: FCC

It's our FCC
that counts echoes of voices
lonely yet blaring.

In 2003, 99.8% of all FCC complaints were filed by the Parents Television Council, a group headed by the weirdly dishonest L. Brent Bozell. (Any group giving any award or recommendation to the supremely unfunny Reba does more damage to the culture than 1,000 bong hits.) It further appears that in a nation of nearly 300 million, that if 3 people take the time to complain in writing to the FCC, Fox Broadcasting can be fined $1.8 million for broadcasting Married by America. Three people write letters, 20 copy one of the letters, the FCC miscounts the letters based on the number of individuals who receive them, and the media reports that the FCC received a whirlwind of complaints.

When ABC affiliates decide not to air Saving Private Ryan or Howard Stern is fined , the mainstream media is quick to look back at Janet Jackson's breast, which was bared for 9/16ths of a second during the Super Bowl, but fails to contextualize the narrowness of the complaints.

The FCC should respond to legitimate groundswells of complaint, but should not be beholden to a handful of extremists with unhealthy attitudes toward sexuality and no apparent sense of humor. The media, when reporting on the FCC's handling of complaints, must learn from these recent reports, and investigate the source and breadth of all complaints. When the FCC levies a fine of $600,000 per unique complaint, it endangers the free flow of information which is the lifeblood of democracy.

The FCC should help us guard our airwaves from oppression. Mainstream values should be a consideration, but all topics should be open to question. More often, however, we suffer from what is not broadcast, rather than what is broadcast. Recently, the major networks refused to air advertisements proclaiming a church's inclusiveness. The networks allow all manner of hucksters and frauds to slime their way onto our airwaves to spread messages of vile character. That Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson can blame gays for the attacks of September 11 and spread their messages of intolerance on local stations across the country, but the United Church of Christ cannot invite homosexuals to worship is a contradiction too grave to exclude from any discussion of the words and images that do -- and often do not -- find their way onto airwaves.