The FCC won't let me be, or let me be me so let me see

November 15, 2004 10:53 AM

Fox's 1.2 million dollar indecency fine was caused by three people complaining. Jeff Jarvis does a little investigative journalism that no mainstream outlets bothered to do. All he did was submit a freedom of information act request via this form, and they sent him the 90 complaints they had on record (the original claim was 159 complaints). But it turns out 88 of them were nearly identical. So three people complained in America, and the FCC fined a network over a million dollars for a show that was already cancelled.
posted by mathowie (39 comments total)

Jarvis also filed a complaint against ABC for airing "Saving Private Ryan." He writes:

I personally believe that the FCC should not be regulating or overseeing speech in any way and should not be in a position to fine speech. I further believe the FCC's actions in this arena are unconstitutional as is the new indecency legislation about to give you further power to fine.

However, because you have declared that Bono violated the law for saying "fuck" you must find that WABC and every other ABC outlet that aired "Saving Private Ryan" violated the law. There is no difference. Because you have fined Howard Stern far more for what many would argue is far less -- even for mere fart sounds -- you must fine WABC and other ABC outlets.

You made this bed, FCC. Now lie in it.

posted by Vidiot at 11:02 AM on November 15, 2004

three people complained . . . and the FCC fined a network over a million dollars

And they say people don't get their money's worth any more in America.
posted by LeLiLo at 11:04 AM on November 15, 2004

Damn. I am going to be writing some letters this afteroon. So are my six alter egos. I've always found Fox News offensive. Brit Hume is very sexually suggestive. The man just leers in hotly undead sort of way.

And I cannot have my non-existant children watching MTV. So that has to go. Along with Trinity Broadcasting Network. That joint just reeks of steamy, untoward sex.

UPN and WB are pretty repulsive too.
posted by xmutex at 11:07 AM on November 15, 2004

With the larger fines, the government can now, much more easier, close down those outlets that cross 'the line'.

The jaws must close, for the lies are now too think to stomach. They must be silenced.

This will be worse before it gets better. Imagine, if anyone airs footage of THE ACTUAL WAR, the will get fined to oblivion.

In answer to Susan Crawford....of course they know. Who do you think is pushing for control?
posted by wah at 11:13 AM on November 15, 2004

I went to high school with the guy that was supposed to marry Billie Jean in the Fox Show that drew the complaint. FWIW, his appearance on that show really drew our tiny community together and boosted civic pride. (Personally though, I'm glad that he left her at the alter. She came across as a skeeze.)
posted by eastlakestandard at 11:13 AM on November 15, 2004

So a complaint letter only counts if you write it yourself? Is that the argument here?
posted by smackfu at 11:21 AM on November 15, 2004

okay... so we have a show which pretty much treats its participants like experimental animals, performing for the voyeuristic kicks of a the lowest common SMS-and-reality-television-addled denominator, debasing marriage far more than a veritable army of Larrys and Stans marching up the steps at City Hall, and the complaint is someone gets a garter removed?

I'm done taking anyone seriously ever again.
posted by Vetinari at 11:21 AM on November 15, 2004

Well, smackfu, I think it's a pretty good argument. Especially if all you're doing is photocopying a letter that somebody else wrote.

I mean, if you can't be bothered to actually even type your own goddamn letter, then it must not have been that offensive, eh?
posted by lodurr at 11:24 AM on November 15, 2004

it was actually three people who wrote original letters...something like 22 people photocopied or otherwise recycled one guy's letter.

Not that that matters, 22 is still pretty paltry. My concern is that the whole complaint system is batty, easily manipulated, and in general just doesn't scale past about school district size. Either a very small number of complaints has disproportionate influence, or some nutwing group sets up a bot to pour thousands of complaints into the FCC db. Which is bound to happen, and then the system falls apart. What's more, the system is inherently unfair, as "non-complaints" have no voice. There's no place in the FCC's process, AFAICT, for expressions of support for a given program. It's only complaints they listen to.

Thankfully, it's not that easy to complain online (right now you have to dig around on their site, and you get pointed by the obscenity page to a form that's obviously for other issues).
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 11:25 AM on November 15, 2004

I've always found Fox News offensive.

The FCC doesn't regulate cable.
posted by mr_roboto at 11:29 AM on November 15, 2004

why do you guys think the networks are terrified to broadcast even slightly controversial material? they do have a reson, all it takes is a very small bunch of minus habentes who have

a) nothing better to do with their time
b) a stamp or a fax machine
posted by matteo at 11:30 AM on November 15, 2004

I just sent the following to FCC chairman Michael Powell:

I am interested in details on how the complaint system works. I know you respond to complaints with warnings, fines, and license suspensions, but do you also balance those against "expressions of support" for a broadcast, or communicate to the public that those are as welcome as complaints? Because it seems to me that a small number of complaints has a disporportionately large influence on your decisions -- especially when NOT balanced against public support for that broadcast, either explicitly expressed, or implied through a given broadcast's audience rating. Thanks for your thoughts.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 11:31 AM on November 15, 2004

The FCC worked as a Republican campaign mechanism to suggest to Middle America that the walls were closing in.

Much in the way that only a handful or Republican operatives were needed to thwart the recount in Florida (by staging a faux demonstration), only a handful were needed to legitimize the FCC's decision to help Bush get reelected.
posted by four panels at 11:36 AM on November 15, 2004

four_panels: Interesting idea. So, would the fine be, in essence, a kind of campaign contribution offering on Fox's part? Doubling as a "beard" for their toadying to the administration (i.e., "look, we get fined, too!").
posted by lodurr at 11:40 AM on November 15, 2004

How do I complain to the FCC that the FCC is offending my sensibilities by censoring everything? Why can't we fine them for being offensive to the constitution? Why do we have to play this game of "can't beat'm? Show'm how stupid they are" and write them complaining about things that don't offend us but would offend us if they fine some but not all? I mean theoretically if we deluge the FCC with complaints we can break the system down, but doesn't the swarm of complaints just reinforce their alleged need for such a system?
posted by ZachsMind at 11:46 AM on November 15, 2004

Well, here's a complaint factory, which could be used by a minority of pepole to barrage the FCC with supposed complaints.

I'll be surprised if ABC gets away unscathed.
posted by mathowie at 11:48 AM on November 15, 2004

This is good to know. When any of you mefi's want to start a letter writing campaign to get rid of anything inane, or too John Birch on network t.v., just let me know. I'll be happy to sign on to whatever. In particular, any of those Christian Hour deals I see every Sunday. I'm always offended by those. Also, any "reality" t.v. shows, not including regular network news. Hey, wait a minute. Yeah, ok, network news too. I was so upset by the Janet Jackson thing. Obviously she was about to start breast feeding the little baby dancing off to her right. Perfectly normal.
posted by MetalDog at 11:49 AM on November 15, 2004

... and the FCC fined a network over a million dollars for a show that was already cancelled.

Choose your snark:
a.) the FCC is just doing its part to cover those tax cuts.
b.) activist judges (or judgements, in this case) are okay as long as they reflect the ideology of the ruling party.


So a complaint letter only counts if you write it yourself? Is that the argument here?

Yes. "Me too" type complaints should appear on petitions, not duplicate letters.
posted by whatnot at 11:58 AM on November 15, 2004

I'm offended that some religious right activist group has bought the local channel two from PBS and turned it into a 24 hour church thing. So every time I turn on the TV I have to fight with the remote to get my tv off the brainwash thing before I find myself conditioned into signing my paycheck away to Swaggart Clones.
posted by ZachsMind at 12:05 PM on November 15, 2004

Perhaps those who don't like the President should fire off numerous letters of complaints whenever he gives a press conference or speech on the public airwaves.
posted by clevershark at 12:42 PM on November 15, 2004

mr roboto: The FCC has just decided that it has authority over anything that can receive a digital signal. Admittedly, this is not saying that the FCC has already decided it can regulate the content of cable, but it's not much of a leap.
posted by adamrice at 12:44 PM on November 15, 2004

Just to play Devil's Advocate here, but the "expressions of support" idea just turns the issue into the will of the majority, and often the will of the majority just means minorities get crushed.

I think it's great that the FCC is willing to consider a complaint even if it ultimately came from only three people. That shows minorities that their interests are being respected and protected, which has a positive effect on society overall. Respecting those you disagree with or who do not share your exact worldview is one of the best byproducts of western civilization.

That doesn't mean I think something should be censored simply because somebody, somewhere got offended by it. The minority's opinion should be considered and respected, and then an impartial determination made as to whether or not the subject matter was indeed worth censure.

(Oddly enough, it's almost 40 years to the day since Kenneth Tynan's history-making broadcast.)

Of course, every TV set ever made has the most effective censorship tool built right in, and that's the one people should be relying on rather than the FCC. Any government-sponsored censorship should, at most, seek to regulate unexpected and unwanted content only. Anybody with a third of a brain cell should have known what sort of show "Married by America" would be.
posted by GhostintheMachine at 12:54 PM on November 15, 2004

GITM, there's no such thing as an "impartial determination." That's a fantasy. Commissioners are political and are biased, just like judges, except judges are bound by law and previous decisions, and commissioners are explicitly NOT bound by past decisions (that would be considered prior restraint of speech). So you have a group of political appointees who are basically answerable to no one. Between that & the complaints of .000002 of the population, and majority rule, I'll take majority rule.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 1:08 PM on November 15, 2004

I'm mixed on this--on the one hand, money is all that companies listen to, so the threat of fines has a chilling effect even without any complaints needed. The political nature of the FCC tho, is a problem. Their selective usage of fines is something that Congress needs to change. Oprah uses the same language Howard Stern did, but i haven't heard of her being fined.

But--the power these complainers have is the same power complainers had over Sinclair's anti-Kerry thing. Advertisers pulled their ads and some stations didn't show it, and the company itself changed the show (and their stock went down). So complaints work, but they cut both ways. The number of real complainers is always hard to determine, in the age of blast faxes and form emails.

Networks are always censoring everything anyway, and that in part is why their ratings have declined so much. They've been the most timid part of media for ages. CBS didn't have to sit on damaging Bush stories, but they did because of the complaints over the Rather thing--no FCC was needed there to chill them.
posted by amberglow at 2:29 PM on November 15, 2004

I'm not making a FPP out of the following, but I think it's tangentially related and worth noticing :

Producer who broke into 'CSI: NY' fired

NEW YORK (AP) -- CBS News has fired the producer responsible for breaking into "CSI: NY" last week for a special report on Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's death, a CBS executive said Monday, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Quoting from the linked article:

The news report came during the last five minutes of the forensics mystery last Wednesday, prompting viewer complaints and leading CBS to repeat the show Friday.

Ok there's no FCC wrongdoing in there allright, so where's the tangent ? I think it's in the "viewer complaints". How frigging many exactly ? Indeed the producer received instructions to run a "crawl" (that scrolling line running at the bottom of screen) in the event of Arafat death , therefore he disobeyed orders and was fired .

But I wonder, was he fired only because he disobeyed (which could be fair) or was he fired because he dared have a brain, consider Arafat death an historic newsworthy event
and the viewers (how many, again) disagreed with him so much that CBS felt he was fire-worthy ?

Maybe he was fired by one CSI-loving letter-reprinting fan who has problems telling newsworthy events from scientific fiction ? Maybe it's the same kind of guy who sent the indecency letters to FCC ?
posted by elpapacito at 3:26 PM on November 15, 2004

Metafilter: Done taking anyone seriously ever again.
posted by rushmc at 3:47 PM on November 15, 2004

But I wonder, was he fired only because he disobeyed (which could be fair) or was he fired because he dared have a brain, consider Arafat death an historic newsworthy event
and the viewers (how many, again) disagreed with him so much that CBS felt he was fire-worthy ?

I'm gonna go out a limb here and say that interrupting CSI for a report on Arafat's death was a bad call. Arafat had been on his deathbed for the past two weeks, so the news wasn't exactly a shocker. Plus, the interruption happened five minutes before the 11 o'clock news, which would have certainly reported Arafat's death. As a viewer, I would not want the program I'm watching to be interrupted for news of a long-anticipated inevitability that I would have found out about in five minutes anyway.

So maybe he was fired because he made a bad decision.
posted by mr_roboto at 3:51 PM on November 15, 2004

Also, with Arafat reportedly near death for several days, CBS News had left explicit instructions for how to deal with that event: run a news "crawl" at the bottom of the screen and direct viewers to the next newscast for more information.

Sounds like he/she got fired for not doing his/her job.
posted by eyeballkid at 4:27 PM on November 15, 2004

mr_roboto: bad decision ? Damn if that was ground for firing and if it was constantly and consistently enforced half of employed population would be probably fired right now, for infinitely retroactive bad_decision_taking.

eyeball: ok I don't question the right of the employer to fire anybody at once for disobeying an order, but that doesn't imply a need to do that, expecially when in the light of the event it seems the guy only wanted to cut short on CSI and break some news ; indeed the death was expected, but the possible developements of the shift in command wasn't so foreseeable. Guess his initiative was too harsly punished, even if the employeer is right on firing because of disobedience.
posted by elpapacito at 5:02 PM on November 15, 2004

indeed the death was expected, but the possible developements of the shift in command wasn't so foreseeable. Guess his initiative was too harsly punished

Initiative? The producer disobeyed a direct order. That's insubordination, which is usually an offense punished by termination. There were no developments as far as Palestinian leadership was concerned the night Arafat died, or at least none that were transparent to any of the western news sources that were reporting his demise.

This also doesn't have much to do with a thread about the inconsistencies in the FCC's policy on fining stations for indecency.
posted by eyeballkid at 5:29 PM on November 15, 2004

Damn if that was ground for firing and if it was constantly and consistently enforced half of employed population would be probably fired right now, for infinitely retroactive bad_decision_taking.

Half of the employed population doesn't make their mistakes in front of 18 million viewers...
posted by mr_roboto at 7:13 PM on November 15, 2004

We don't know that this was this guy's first mistake, either.
posted by kindall at 7:22 PM on November 15, 2004

Wow. You can change the one million mom letters slightly to present the opposite side of the argument. I've just sent a barrage of letters to advertisers with some teen sex program to keep up the good work.

Thanks onemillionmoms for your bandwidth and your support.
posted by seanyboy at 2:12 AM on November 16, 2004

stupidsexy, understand that I was merely pointing out there's problems with majority, or perhaps "mob" rule, too. You're basically saying you'd rather be crushed by an elephant than shot by a cannon. Why not look for another alternative?

It's too bad there isn't some system whereby a small group of people can be selected to pass such judgements, and have that group be accountable to the will of the majority, say at regular intervals. Yep, a system like that would be great.

I would prefer it if there were no censors at all, and the responsibility was left to me. But I also appreciate that there are others who want or require someone else to think for them. It ain't an ideal world, and I need to make allowances for that.
posted by GhostintheMachine at 6:20 AM on November 16, 2004

Yep, a system like that would be great.

I think it would suck.

:::looks around:::

Yep, it sucks.
posted by rushmc at 10:03 AM on November 16, 2004

$1.2 million is chump change for Fox. Granted, the FCC should have noticed that the complaints were dupes, but Fox can afford it.
posted by crunchland at 10:33 AM on November 16, 2004

Abolish the FCC, a ChangeThis manifesto.
posted by dobbs at 10:42 AM on November 16, 2004

FCC clarifies that they do, in fact, control everything
posted by homunculus at 12:18 PM on November 16, 2004

The story's made it to IMDb... though they've somehow confused Married By America with Married... with Children. (I know, little difference, but hey...)
posted by GhostintheMachine at 6:16 AM on November 17, 2004