COALITION OF BROADCASTERS, PERFORMERS, PUBLIC INTEREST AND PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
ACCUSE FCC OF CHILLING FREE SPEECH
New York, New York, April 19, 2004 – A broad coalition of
broadcasters, artists, public interest and professional organizations asked the
FCC today to reconsider its recent Golden Globe Awards decision, which
vastly expanded the kinds of speech banned by the FCC. The group charged that
the FCC’s sweeping and unconstitutional expansion of its regulatory authority
is already chilling free speech across the broadcast landscape.
“The Commission’s harsh new policy has sent shock waves
through the media industry, forcing broadcasters to censor speech that is
protected by the First Amendment,” said Robert Corn-Revere, partner in the Washington,
D.C. office of Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, which is representing the group.
“The Supreme Court requires clear guidance, a narrow focus and a light
regulatory hand. The FCC may not trample on the rights of the public to see
and hear the programming it wants for those who favor censorship.”
According to the coalition’s filing, vague and overly broad
regulation allows the FCC to engage in subjective enforcement and forces
broadcasters to restrict their expression to that which is unquestionably
safe. The filing points out that the Golden Globe Awards decision is
prompting a growing number of broadcasters to abandon live programming. Radio
stations are scouring their play lists and dropping or heavily editing songs
that have been played for years without ever having drawn a complaint—spanning
rock classics like The Who’s “Who Are You” and Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild
Side” to such current hits as Pearl Jam’s “Jeremy” and Outkast’s “Roses” to
even pop songs like John Mellencamp’s “Jack and Diane” and Sheryl Crow’s “A
Change Would Do You Good.”
The FCC decision also has resulted in significant
restrictions on television programming, the filing asserts, including programs
the FCC staff previously ruled were not indecent. For instance, the principals
of this year’s annual Victoria’s Secret fashion show decided to scrap the
already-filmed show, even though the Commission staff in the past had cleared
the show. The new policy has led to changes in acclaimed network drama series, such
as an episode of ER that was edited to eliminate a brief shot of the exposed
breast of an 80-year-old woman receiving emergency care. The chilling effect
has even caused public television stations to edit and in some cases drop
serious documentary programs. Public broadcaster WGBH edited a hint of cleavage
out of its American Experience documentary Emma Goldman, and PBS
felt it had to edit certain nonsexual expletives from the poetry of renowned
poet, writer and educator Piri Thomas in a documentary of his life.
The organizations that filed the joint petition include the American Civil
Liberties Union, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, Beasley
Broadcast Group, Inc., Citadel Broadcasting Corporation, The Creative
Coalition, Directors Guild of America, Inc., Entercom Communications Corp., The
First Amendment Project, Fox Entertainment Group, Inc., Freedom to Read
Foundation, Margaret Cho, Media Access Project, Minnesota Public Radio, The
National Coalition Against Censorship, National Federation of Community
Broadcasters, Penn & Teller, People For the American Way Foundation, Radio
One, Inc., The Recording Artists' Coalition, Recording Industry Association of
America, Inc., Screen Actors Guild, Viacom Inc., When in Doubt Productions,
Inc., and Writers Guild of America, west.
Click here to review
the FCC petition.
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