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defrogI saw this last week, but didn’t have time to process it. But it’s worth passing on.
ITEM: The Supreme Court ruled that the FCC can keep its “fleeting expletives” policy – also known as The Bono Rule – in place for the time being.
As you might expect, I don’t care for the Bono Rule or the Supremes’ ruling, if only because it leads to stupid shit like monkey-fighting snakes and national panic over nipples.
But I can’t say I’m surprised, either. Broadcast censorship has never really been based on rational thought. Why start now? Still, even the pre-Bono policy at least allowed for potentially sensible guidelines like context. But then the Bush II Admin pretty much killed context as a concept, so again, the Supremes arguably couldn’t have ruled any other way.
That said, the Supremes didn’t address the constitutionality of an FCC ban on specific words, and they’ve directed the appeals court to make a ruling on that issue. So at least they'll have a chance to revisit this from a 1A angle.
In the meantime, the upshot of all this that Shepard Smith could still cost Fox News at least $325K in fines.
But hey, that economic stimulus bill isn’t going to pay for itself, you know. And with the FCC’s current backlog of indecency complaints now at 820,000 (most of them probably from Jim Dobson) the subsequent fines could cover the cost of stimulating the economy of Oklahoma.
So in that sense, I guess it’s win-win.
Profanity pays,
This is dF
ITEM: The Supreme Court ruled that the FCC can keep its “fleeting expletives” policy – also known as The Bono Rule – in place for the time being.
As you might expect, I don’t care for the Bono Rule or the Supremes’ ruling, if only because it leads to stupid shit like monkey-fighting snakes and national panic over nipples.
But I can’t say I’m surprised, either. Broadcast censorship has never really been based on rational thought. Why start now? Still, even the pre-Bono policy at least allowed for potentially sensible guidelines like context. But then the Bush II Admin pretty much killed context as a concept, so again, the Supremes arguably couldn’t have ruled any other way.
That said, the Supremes didn’t address the constitutionality of an FCC ban on specific words, and they’ve directed the appeals court to make a ruling on that issue. So at least they'll have a chance to revisit this from a 1A angle.
In the meantime, the upshot of all this that Shepard Smith could still cost Fox News at least $325K in fines.
But hey, that economic stimulus bill isn’t going to pay for itself, you know. And with the FCC’s current backlog of indecency complaints now at 820,000 (most of them probably from Jim Dobson) the subsequent fines could cover the cost of stimulating the economy of Oklahoma.
So in that sense, I guess it’s win-win.
Profanity pays,
This is dF
