Alternate Entries

Friday, December 03, 2004

Michael Powell, son of Colin, and the Chairman of the FCC, was seen whining on the Op-Ed page of the New York Times today. People are being so mean, he seemed to be saying: it's not my fault that the rules are the way they are - it's not my fault I have to impose these record fines on broadcasters, chilling the atmosphere to the extent that multiple local stations are afraid to air "Saving Private Ryan" for fear they would be hit in the place they are most vulnerable, their pocketbooks.

But we are not the federal Bureau of Indecency. We do not watch or listen to programs hoping to catch purveyors of dirty broadcasts. Instead, we rely on public complaints to point out potentially indecent shows. In recent years, complaints about television and radio broadcasts have skyrocketed, and the F.C.C. has stepped up its enforcement in response.

This is, of course, bullshit. Fox was recently hit with a 1.2 million dollar fine, for some crassness associated with the execrable show "Married by America." Was the fine levied out of outrage at the aesthetic sumphole that the general "reality" trend in television demonstrates? No. It was levied as a result of the indignant outrage of, as Powell calls them, the "citizens who believe in values and reasonable limits," the ones who flooded his office with complaints.

Except, of course, there was no such flood. Jeff Jarvis filed an FOIA request for the actual letters. There were 23 instances of complaints, of which three were unique. The others were bad Xeroxes of one of the original three. So the policy governing the behavior of a government comission charged with protecting the public's interest is controlled by the petulance of three people.

And you better believe that CBS and NBC knew this when they turned down the recent UCC ad for, yes, it's true, that horribly controversial value: tolerance. Can't have that. Might upset the folks who cheer when Jerry Falwell says we should track the "terrorists" down to the ends of the globe and "blow them all away in the name of the Lord". "This just in," Steven Colbert quipped after playing that particular example of loving your enemies, "Jesus quit."

Given what's going on in Iraq, in the economy, in the courts, what is happening to craven broadcasters is not exactly the worst thing going. But it is a hugely important canary: the Michael Powells, and the people who put Michael Powell where he is today, hate the world that they see, and they believe, based on who knows what - it's certainly not the evidence of the world they see in front of them - that they can stamp their feet, wave their hands, bully, and, poof, everything will be the way they want it. These people are just really, really evil, and we need to do whatever it takes to put them back under the rock they crawled out from under.

posted by jeev | 8:16 PM |