Dear George,
Sometimes seismic shifts in power are so subtle, even the most finely tuned instrument is unable to pick them up. Life goes on as always even though life as we have known it is no more.
Such a shift took place when the FCC fined CBS over $3 million dollars for airing a scene that hinted at an implied orgy involving implied teenagers. The FCC felt this implied obscenity had no place on our implied airways.
What is significant is the criterion the FCC uses for determining if content is indecent. If the material, “panders to, titillates, or shocks the audience,” it is indecent.
Do you see what we have here? By that definition, broadcast news is indecent. It panders to its audience; the dictum, “If it bleeds, it leads,” means to titillate; and they do their best to shock the audience, especially during sweep week.
This means that you have the authority as vested in you by the FCC to brand any story that panders, titillates, or shocks, indecent and fine the pants off the network that aired it. Specifically, any story showing violence in Iraq would, ipso facto, be indecent. This would guarantee that the only stories coming out of Iraq would be happy stories. No more explosions! No more dead bodies! No more wounded children. If we’d had this authority in Vietnam, we still be pacifying the place.
From now on, George, all we see coming out of Iraq are shots of happy schoolchildren gazing up at their American liberators with admiration.
Your admirer,
Belacqua Jones
8:55:31 PM 
|
|
