Text 2660, 94 rader
Skriven 2004-09-28 15:35:14 av Alan Hess
Ärende: did FCC overreact?
==========================
to the "wardrobe malfunction" at the Super Bowl halftime show?  This columnist
says parents, for the most part, don't seem overly concerned by breast
exposure, and that it's nothing new.
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http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/bal-op.chapman28sep28,0,655527.story?
coll=bal-pe-opinion
Boob tube bullies


By Steve Chapman

September 28, 2004

CHICAGO -- We can all remember, with shock, the first time we caught sight of a
bare breast on network television. It happened just eight months ago, during
the Super Bowl halftime show, when singer Justin Timberlake yanked down Janet
Jackson's top and exposed, for a fleeting instant, an item of flesh never
before seen by a broadcast audience.

What's that you say? That wasn't the first time? Hmm. I take it viewers got a
glimpse of an unmistakably female chest back in 2002, on CBS's CSI: Crime Scene
Investigation. Which would make Ms. Jackson's the second one.

No? There was, it seems, a previous incident when actress Drew Barrymore
flashed David Letterman. And what's this? Meredith Baxter displayed her charms
in a 1994 network TV movie. Well, these things didn't happen in the wholesome
days before Bill Clinton. Huh? They did? Students of Charlie's Angels report a
confirmed sighting of one of Farrah Fawcett's prize assets back in 1976? And
Valerie Perrine gave an eyeful to viewers of PBS -- PBS! -- in 1973.

In spite of all these episodes, it appears that millions of Americans suffered
no permanent trauma. But the Federal Communications Commission is taking no
chances. Last week, assuming the new role of Federal Breast Police, it
announced a fine of $550,000 against CBS for the incident. It fulminated that
"the nudity here was designed to pander to, titillate and shock the viewing
audience," and said the network had "betrayed its trust" to the FCC and the
parents of America.

That last claim is certainly true: When they tune in NFL telecasts with their
offspring, parents don't normally anticipate gratuitous displays of female
flesh -- aside from cheerleaders who could have gotten their outfits from
Victoria's Secret. But CBS's surprise last Feb. 1 doesn't mean federal
intervention is required.

We don't expect the federal government, after all, to prevent offensive nudity
in Time magazine, your local newspaper or even Highlights for Children. We rely
on the informal contract between publications and their readers to assure that
people get more or less what they want with no rude shocks. And when a
publication breaches that trust, we assume that the pain of alienating their
customers is punishment enough. The networks learned a stinging lesson from
this episode -- to keep the Super Bowl PG.

The FCC, however, assumes that only censors based in Washington can offer
parents protection against the entertainment industry. FCC Chairman Michael K.
Powell, in announcing this decision, said the First Amendment is "not a license
to thrill. 'Anything goes' is not an acceptable mantra for those that elect to
earn their profit using the public's airwaves."

The "public airwaves" rationale is supposed to explain why the government may
abridge freedom of speech -- if it takes place on TV and radio. But newspaper
delivery people use public roads, and magazines are transported with the help
of federal air traffic control, and that doesn't mean print publications are
subject to federal censorship. The American people don't have to rely on
Washington bureaucrats to induce broadcasters to serve their needs and
interests. The profit motive serves that purpose quite well.

Not everything on TV is fit for the youngsters, but that state of affairs is
not exactly a national crisis, and most people don't treat it as one. Back in
1996 Washington took action against sex and violence by forcing manufacturers
to equip every new TV with a V-chip that parents could use to block out
inappropriate shows. But a 2001 survey by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation
discovered that 93 percent of parents don't bother using the V-chips.

After the Super Bowl scandal, the big cable companies offered free channel
blocking to any subscribers worried that Junior might be checking out Sex and
the City on the sly. Again, the response was nearly imperceptible. Comcast, the
nation's biggest cable provider, says less than 1 percent of its subscribers
have even inquired about parental controls. Says Mark Harrad, a spokesman for
Time Warner Cable, "There's not an enormous demand for it."

It may be that most parents don't put a high priority on making sure their kids
never see a breast. Or it may be that they rely on more traditional safeguards,
like the "off" button on the remote control. But regardless of how they're
performing their parental role, they don't need the federal government to take
it over.

Steve Chapman is a columnist for the Chicago Tribune, a Tribune Publishing
company. His column appears Tuesdays and Fridays in The Sun.

Copyright + 2004, The Baltimore Sun

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