FCC Settles Censorship Claims with ClearChannel

The Importance of writes "Earlier this week Slashdot debated whether the FCC should be abolished. One of the reasons many think the FCC should go away is because of censorship. Well, yesterday, the FCC settled all existing censorship investigations with Clear Channel for $1.75M and a promise to be better in the future, such as by firing DJs for their first offense. Clear Channel also plead guilty to violating indecency standards, but no one is saying what, exactly they said that was wrong. On the other hand, the FCC seems to have forgotten that they decided a couple of months ago to regulate profanity in addition to indecency. In other FCC news, they've posted the internet section of the FCC History Project."

Comments

Shakedown

[SIGALRM]

The Federal Communications Commission had already proposed almost $800,000 in fines against the radio giant ... but the settlement wipes the slate clean.

So the payoff wasn't for actual fines, it was for the threat of fines to come.

Sounds like a shake-down to me.

Suspicion is all it takes

[Grrr]

From Powell's statement...

In addition, those accused of violating the Commission's rules will be suspended and if ultimately found to violate our rules, will be terminated.
!
... and Ernest Miller made a great catch, there:

"That's great. Accusations lead to suspension. And, one foul-up and you're fired. How many people could handle a situation where one accidental word that is commonly used could get you suspended and/or fired? That's something to be proud of."

Further down, same page, he also came up with the pithy "Apparently, self-censorship forced upon us by government is better than direct censorship."

Now, if only we could find out exactly what CC admitted to doing wrong, why, we'd all have a better chance of not committing the same horrible acts ourselves.

<grrr>

We've gotta get over this.

[slusich]

These puritanical attitudes make us the laughing stock of the entire world. I can't see us being taken seriously until we stop acting like 12 year olds every time a breast pops out on TV, or some shock jock says something naughty.

More insulting

[sielwolf]

was the Clear Channel CEO saying that all content, including pay cable and satelite radio, should be held to the same standard as public broadcast. His rationale: for the kids.

*pfff* Sorry but there's a reason why there is "public" standards on "public" channels. This wasn't about any sort of moral or ethical standard. This guy was just pissy because all adults were voting with their $$$ and going off to adult-level content on HBO or XM radio that he, as bound by public broadcast, could never provide.

So his whole thing is to level the playing field by screwing everybody else. What a nimrod.