Puritanical on obscenity

As a college radio station, WRUB could be an open forum for experimentation within the media of radio, free for the students putting together their shows to push the envelope of format and topics without limitations. Right now, solely broadcasting on campus cable and the Internet, WRUB has this freedom, in theory. In practice, the WRUB staff and hosts already censor themselves by Federal Communication Commission rules in preparation for a potential move to the FM dial. This practice for on-air regulations makes sense now that the cost for an on-air slip of tongue or the wrong Sex Talk show topic could cost the station as much as $500,000 as the House of Representatives voted to raise the fine for indecent broadcasts on Tuesday.

Raising the fine to such an astronomic level is unfair to small broadcasters like WRUB, and it's a disservice to society in general. On one level, it is merely another form of the puritanical overreaction to the Super Bowl "wardrobe malfunction" of a little over a year ago. On another level, it's part of a reactionary campaign to repress images of a sexual nature from the media - a repressive ideology that harms freedom of speech.

The FCC's investigation into the Super Bowl incident garnered headlines and even impacted this year's advertisements, but the impact was not so much a response to the potential of huge fines as to the huge publicity fiasco surrounding it. The FCC, and by extension the government, have neither the place nor the real ability to limit indecency.

Restrictions like those of the FCC are nothing but censorship and, in large part, a violation of freedom of speech. While certain regulations make sense, the vagaries of the FCC regulations leave too much to the imagination of those enforcing the rules. Current indecency regulations define broadcast indecency as "language or material that, in context, depicts or describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community broadcast standards for the broadcast medium, sexual or excretory references."

Broadcasters are understandably confused by this language, and according to most news reports, they are staying far away from anything that might be considered indecent. The most difficult aspect of this vagueness is the apparent lack of consistency in what is indecent or obscene. Certain conversations on Howard Stern of almost a year before the Janet Jackson incident were not deemed indecent until well after the 2004 Super Bowl, but an airing of Saving Private Ryan that 66 local ABC affiliates dropped because of language and the extreme violence of the opening sequence was not subject to punishment.

The ACLU said the lack of clarity and fines would cause broadcasters to censor themselves beyond what should be expected. "The uncertainty inherent in the definition (or lack thereof) of 'indecency' will inevitably lead broadcasters to avoid certain speech because that speech may later be deemed indecent and the broadcaster faces tremendous liability because of the increase in fines," said a March 2004 letter, dated when the bill was first presented. Several representatives promised their votes for the fine increase as long as the definition for indecency was clarified, but huge fines will be a reality long before the definition is solidified.

In reality, huge fines - even a half a million dollars - are not going to have much effect on the content of what is aired. The $500,000 fine is not much money for a corporation such as NBC or Clear Channel Radio. These fines really only affect the shrinking number of small-time broadcasters, where a full FCC fine could sink them. The rising FCC costs seem to only serve to further enhance the conglomerate monopoly of the media. For the large corporations, the real effect of indecency is advertisers dropping their support of a program, something that only happens if viewers tune out. In other words, the responsibility for monitoring what people watch falls squarely on the shoulders of the consumers.

So, if you don't want to watch or listen, change the channel.