Joan, Biskupic Journalist from USA Today (2007 October, 25). Fight over TV indecency is on high court’s doorstep; Case tests FCC’s attempt to limit expletives. USA Today.

 The dispute over the FCC’s expletives policy, he says, is a small slice of a larger controversy between advocacy groups that think there is too much vulgar language on TV and civil libertarians who fear censorship.“The two sides are always looking to go after each other,” Simon says, “and this tends to happen more as we approach an election year.”Aided by the Internet, which makes registering a grievance as easy as pressing a button on an advocacy group’s website, complaints about broadcast programs are rising. The FCC reports that in 2000, it got about 100 complaints about possibly indecent programming. In 2004, the year Jackson’s breast was revealed, the FCC got 1.4 million. The number has dropped slightly since then but remains in the hundreds of thousands annually.

This article is written by Joan Biskupic who is an author from USA today. This article is extremely important to the essay because it talks about how the FCC is in a position where they are forced to act. If the FCC were to allow networks to get away with obscenities, they would not be catering to the public interest.

Minow N. Newton Chairman of the FCC (May 9 1961) American Rhetoric: Television and Public Interest.

 Broadcasting to serve the public interest, must have a soul and a conscience, a burning desire to excel, as well as to sell; the urge to build the character, citizenship, and intellectual stature of people, as well as to expand the gross national product. …By no means do I imply that broadcasters disregard the public interest. …But a much better job can be done, and should be done. Television and all who participate in it are jointly accountable to the American public for respect for the special needs of children, for community responsibility, for the advancement of education and culture, for the acceptability of the program materials chosen, for decency and decorum in production, and for propriety in advertising. This responsibility cannot be discharged by any given group of programs, but can be discharged only through the highest standards of respect for the American home, applied to every moment of every program presented by television.

This is an incredibly useful source because it is from the official chairman of the FCC at the time. This speech is very famous because it talks about television becoming a vast wasteland for all of the mindless, and senseless obscenities that have taken place since television began to broadcast. He talks about how broadcasting to the public interest must have a soul. This is inferring that people want the same kind of standards when watching television. I think this is one of the most important credible sources because it is the actual voice of the FCC.

Stolyarova, Galina Writer of Transitions Online(2008, September, 15) They Killed South Park! Transitions Online.

 In an official statement released this week, the General Prosecutor’s Office declared 117 other cartoons shown by the channel unsuitable for children. Among them were international favorites like The Simpsons and The Family Guy. Nearly all the cartoons exploit the theme of suicide; they promote violence, cruelty, pornography, and antisocial behavior; the characters demonstrate a willingness to risk their lives in a search for questionable pleasures and extreme sensations,” the statement reads. “The products of such low ethical quality are exerting an extremely negative influence on children, distorting their values and increasing the risk that they will be put into a state of panic and develop neurotic conditions.”The American animated series at issue was created as a fusion of provocation, black humor, and razor-edge political satire. Ridiculing political correctness has been a trademark. South Park has had politicians ranging from George W. Bush to Saddam Hussein among its characters. It has drawn criticism from religious organizations across the globe but apparently has never “until now” faced an official ban.

This is a good source because it shows that although there are networks that are private, there are networks such as comedy central that feature cartoons that may capture the attention of children. Yes they are for adults but children see cartoons and think it is for them. Cartoons are a way of saying and relaying messages without using people, so its a lot easier to get away with things because we cannot actually see who is saying what.

Perry, Suzanne Journalist at the Chronicle of Higher Education (2009, September, 17) More Nonprofit Groups Tap Into TV to Help Promote Their Priorities. Chronicle of Higher Education.

 Kaiser, for example, presented annual educational sessions about HIV/AIDS to writers and producers for CBS and the (now defunct) UPN network from 2003 to 2008. Those inspired about two dozen story lines about the disease on shows including the crime dramas Cold Case and CSI: NY, the comedy One on One, and the reality show America’s Next Top Model, says Tina Hoff, director of entertainment media partnerships at Kaiser. The foundation considers prime-time television a critical partner in its efforts to educate the public about health, partly because it touches so many people, Ms. Hoff says. “In some ways, it’s more effective than a traditional communications route,” she adds. Viewers can learn a tremendous amount from characters they relate to and trust. The episode of Grey’s Anatomy on mother-to-child HIV transmission was designed to test that thesis. The foundation, which worked with the program’s director of medical research to select the topic, conducted telephone surveys of the show’s viewers both before and after the episode aired. The results: Before watching, 15 percent knew that a woman with HIV had more than a 90-percent chance of giving birth to a healthy baby. One week after the broadcast, that number rose to 61 percent. Six weeks later, the number had slipped to 45 percent, but that was still much higher than the pre-episode number.

This is an important article because it argues that private networks do not use public indeceny but reach out to viewers in other ways. Not all private networks take advantage of the fact that the FCC does not monitor them.

Sands, David Journalist of The Washington Times (2009, February 27). Fairness Vote Rejects Fairness Doctrine revival; Amendment backs FCC diversity goal. The Washington Times,

      The Senate overwhelmingly put itself on record Thursday against any revival of the defunct Fairness Doctrine, designed to require public broadcasters to air “balanced” coverage of controversial issues of public importance. Conservatives have worried that the Obama administration and congressional Democrats were plotting to revive the policy, dropped in the last years of the Reagan administration, as a means of curbing the influence of commercial talk radio and other media dominated by right-of-center broadcasters. The 87-11 vote came on an amendment to the bill that would give the District full voting rights in the House of Representatives. It was offered by Sen. Jim DeMint, South Carolina Republican. But Democrats who worried the ban was too sweeping were able to add a second amendment offered by Senate Assistant Majority Leader Richard J. Durbin of Illinois restating existing law that the Federal Communications Commission’s mission should include promoting diversity in media ownership and that the FCC retained the right to require broadcasters to meet their obligations to “operate in the public interest.”

      This source is important because it shows that the FCC is simply catering to the public interest. It is the public who does not want to hear explicit words and might think that it detracts from the television program. I want to find an article that counters this issue to ask if there are people who infact think that the explicit words add flavor to the show. This is a good article because it talks about the diversity in the media. I am interested to see the exact statistics of those people who say that they prefer or do not prefer heavy language.

Joan, Biskupic Journalist from USA Today (2007 October, 25). Fight over TV indecency is on high court’s doorstep; Case tests FCC’s attempt to limit expletives. USA Today.         

      The Supreme Court takes up fewer than 1% of the appeals it receives each year, but it tends to be more open to reviewing federal policy that is invalidated by lower courts. The justices likely will announce in early 2008 whether they will hear the FCC case. Biographies Plus News Tamara Lipper, a spokeswoman for Martin, says he does not want to comment on the litigation or how the FCC might try to rewrite its policy if the high court declines to hear the appeal. Carlin’s ‘seven dirty words’ The last time the Supreme Court reviewed the FCC’s power to curb indecency, in 1978, it rejected a First Amendment challenge to limiting the hours that broadcasters could air “indecent” material.

           I feel like this is a strong piece of evidence because it shows that although it may seem like the FCC is out of control and that every time they fine somebody it results in the bankruptcy of a network, this actually breaks down the statistics that shows not all cases go to court and almost all of them are dismissed. This was surprising to me because I thought that the FCC had the final say as to what programs can continue to be broadcasted. There is so much information and all the sources I found were reasons for why the FCC should continue to monitor public airwaves as much as private networks to equalize competition.

For years afterward, the FCC did not target such one-time use of dirty words on broadcast radio or television. The new policy largely responded to a 2003 incident in which Bono, the lead singer for U2, uttered an expletive in his acceptance speech for a Golden Globes award show on NBC. After complaints from people tied to the Parents Television Council and amid protests over numerous other TV incidents, the FCC reversed its long-standing policy and in 2004 banned the isolated use of expletives with sexual and excretory connotations. Broadcasters challenged the policy as arbitrary and infringing on their free-speech rights. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, whose decision is before the justices, said that “while the FCC is free to change its previously settled view on this issue, it must provide a reasoned basis for that change.” In the FCC’s appeal, U.S. Solicitor General Gregory Garre says the commission sought to protect young viewers from the “first blow” of offensive comments, not only from repeated vulgarities. Garre said that, among many criteria, the FCC considers whether the words were used to titillate or pander to the audience.

       This argues that the FCC regulations are good as they are. This is good for the argument because it shows that the FCC has been very specific as to what can and cannot be said on the public airwaves. At the same time it shows that sometimes the words are out of their control like the Bono example. Should they be fined for things that they cannot control? This piece of evidence can easily argue both sides although it seems as though it is for the negative side.

American Association of Sex Educators (2007, March). Uncensored nudity worries child safety advocates. American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors and Therapists, 

 Uncensored nudity worries child safety advocates. American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors and Therapists, YouTube, the video sharing website purchased by Google for $1.6 billion last year, is facing competitors that make online nudity more likely. YouTube bans live chats because it can’t control content. Los Angeles-based Stickam (pronounced Stick-cam) allows live video chats among its 260,000 registered users. That worries some child safety advocates. “The only thing you get from the combination of Web cams and young people are problems,” said WiredSaftey.org’s Parry Aftab. “Web cams are a magnet for sexual predators.” Like the popular MySpace and FaceBook sites, Stickam markets itself as a social networking site encouraging users to share information about their hobbies, interests and activities. Stickam bars users under age 14 and forbids “obscene, profane and indecent behavior,” but since many users interact with each other in live video chats, there’s no way of monitoring usage.         

       This is a valuable source for my topic because it would argues the one side that says the FCC needs to monitor the media airwaves to protect children from dangerous people on facebook.  This is a very emotional appeal to the audience because the general public is concerned with the safety of children and don’t want to think about people coming into contact with our young children who could cause potential harm.

More information on this topic:

http://www.tsa.gov/travelers/airtravel/prohibited/permitted-prohibited-items.shtm

For more information on this topic visit:

http://legalblogwatch.typepad.com/legal_blog_watch/2008/03/do-employers-us.html