The Daily Stern: Life without Howard
: WAR OF THE WORLDS: WXRK radio in New York, Howard's HQ, begins the day this morning with a statement from the general manager saying that because of recent action by the FCC and Congress, Infinity Broadcasting cannot risk its licenses and its shareholders' equity and so it is regretfully taking the Howard Stern Show off the air.
It is to be replaced by Cross and Lopez, a new team whose mission is "morning fun without filth." They play Beyonce and promise to recap last night's American Idol! "We are building a better, cleaner morning program."
It's a brilliant statement on what our government nannies would have us here.
Now I'm eager for the joke to end.... the joke on the air this morning, and the joke in Washington....
: For good measure, it seems they took down HowardStern.com.
: UPDATE: They kept the gag going until 7:22, when Cross & Lopez were interrupted by farts.
Channel 11 news in New York fell for it: Breaking News! Howard Stern off the air!... Oops. April Fool's.
: MIDMORNING UPDATE: At 10a, the calls from California started coming in, with an 83-year-old woman upset that Howard was off the air.
I also got email from a reader in Boston upset because hosts there were suspended because they violated the station's new rules and used the word "nipple." I called the station to confirm my suspicion: This, too, was an April Fool's joke. But it could happen and that's the point.
: Yes, it's April Fool's Day in New York. But in Washington, every day is Fool's Day.
Speaking of fools...
: MICHAEL POWELL CHILLS: FCC National Nanny Michael Powell appeared before a closed-door session of the National Association of Broadcasters yesterday, urging them to bring back a broadcasting code of conduct, which was dropped -- O, Irony -- in 1982 "under Reagan administration pressure, on both antitrust and First Amendment grounds," says the AP.
So now here is another Republican administration trying to bring it back. That's because of political pressure on two fronts: First, it's about politicians -- of both parties -- trying to curry favor with religious conservatives in an election year. Second, it's about Michael Powell trying to take the heat off himself regarding media ownership.
Powell's words send a chill up my American spine. Here are some excerpts and comments (my emphases):
Of particular significance, and concern, is that the debate [over media ownership] re-energized the previously fading debate about the role of government in content—whether it be restricting offensive content, or promoting favored content and viewpoints. This increased comfort with content intrusion is part of what is on display in the furious debate about broadcast indecency and excessive violence....
Indeed, I am of the view that competitive pressures much more than consolidation are what account for more programming that tests the limits of indecency and violence.
First, no, the ownership debate has nothing to do with the "indecency" debate except perhaps in the minds of a few nonspecific media-haters and fools in Congress. It's an insane argument to say that the two are tied and Powell himself doesn't believe it. But he's dancing a political cha-cha here. He's for media deregulation. But he royally screwed up the effort to enact that, proving himself to be a complete political numbnuts and losing the support even of his own commission. So now he has media haters -- including the decency squad -- after him. So he's trying to curry favor with them by backing "decency" regulations. Only isn't he in favor of media
deregulation? How can he be in favor of deregulating media in terms of business and regulating media in terms of content? Cha-cha-cha.
Second, when in the history of this dear nation has anyone suggested that government should be in the role of, quoting Chairman Powell, "promoting favored content and viewpoints"? It's bad enough to have people in power considering censoring and telling us what we cannot say. It's worse, far worse, to imagine that a free government would tell us what to say, would "promote favored content and viewpoints." That, truly, is what mullahs and ayatollahs do. That is why the Commies had ministers of propaganda. That is the most unAmerican damned thing I've heard come out of Washington since Joe McCarthy.
For 77 years, Congress has had a statute that prohibits any obscene, indecent, or profane utterance over the airwaves. People are more shocked to learn that this statute today resides in the criminal code and that a violation could lead to criminal prosecution.
I take that as a veiled threat to send people to jail for what they say.
It is very hard to balance and reconcile our moral and cultural values on one hand, and the enormous value we place on speech free from government intrusion on the other. At the margins this is quite difficult and the FCC has generally been cautious.
Currently, however, we are not talking about speech or conduct on the margin that has set off the current powder keg in the country. We see increasing - - -I might even say escalating - - - complaints from the public because increasingly it seems the media is not playing close to the line, but is outright leaping past the line and in fact daring the audience and daring the government to do anything about it. Some of the transcripts I have been forced to read reveal content that is pure trash, plain and simple, and few, other than staunch libertarians, could possibly stand up and defend it publicly.
OK, you Libertarians, open up your Second-Amendment closets, form a militia, and storm Washington; them's fightin' words!
Of course, some of what has been said on the air has been offensive and some companies have acted on their own because of marketplace -- not government -- pressure. Opie & Anthony bit the dust because the market screamed. And that is the way things are supposed to work.
You're right, Chairman Powell, it is damned difficult to, in your words, "balance and reconcile our moral and cultural values on one hand, and the enormous value we place on speech free from government intrusion on the other." That is precisely why you should not be doing it. It is impossible to balance free speech against one person's or one commission's judgment of our moral and cultural values. Free speech is free speech. There is no balancing. It is an absolute.
You yourself admit that regulation of broadcast content is an exception to free speech:
The First Amendment is cherished, but it bends only for you among media services. The Supreme Court and countless legal decisions create a special exception that allows government to demand more from broadcasting, right or wrongly.
Powell also tries to create a doctrine of prior consent to speech:
Given the free over the air nature of the medium, consumers do not express any prior consent to receive certain sounds and images—at least not to the extent they do with cable or rented videos, for example.
So take this out to the proverbial soapbox in the park. Can a speaker on a corner say what he or she wishes in a free society, or does that speaker need to get the prior consent of the listenters? Doesn't wash, Mr. Chairman.
But, in the end, Powell seems to want to dodge the whole issue by telling the broadcasters to bring back a code of conduct (bring back single beds on sitcoms!). He hopes this would take him off the hot seat. But that won't wash either, Mr. Chairman, for you have not put direct pressure on broadcasters to create such a code and you want them to do so under threat of fines that can now rise into the millions of dollars for not only broadcasters but also for entertainers and people who simply speak on the air -- sometimes known as citizens. You are trying to regulate speech; you're just trying to find the chicken's way to do it.
In this vein, I want to strongly encourage you to develop and adopt a new voluntary code to guide your actions in the same spirit you have in years past. I believe you can create such best practices and guidelines, consistent with the law. It would be in your interest to do so.
Finally, I have heard some of you call for an FCC rulemaking to create more “clarity” as to what is prohibited. I want to warn you that this is unwise. You do not want to ask the government to write a “Red Book” of Dos and Don’ts. I understand the complaint about knowing where the line is, but heavier government entanglement through a “Dirty Conduct Code” will not only chill speech, it may deep freeze it. It might be an ice age that would last a very long time.
That is mealy-mouthed nonsense. The best argument against the current regulations and their enforcement is their utter inconsistency and lack of clarity. Thus, Howard Stern is fined for explaining a sexual colloquialisms; Oprah Winfrey is not. And as a result, we hear this morning, some stations are so afraid that they will be fined years later for something said today that they are forbidding their on-air citizens to say "the Mets suck." That offends the Constitution and God.
The chill is on, Mr. Powell, and you're the big freezer.
Powell ends his remarks with this:
I will conclude, as I once concluded a speech on the First Amendment several years ago: “We should think twice before allowing the government the discretion to filter information to us as they see fit, for the King always takes his ransom.”
Too bad he doesn't mean that.
: A CONSERVATIVE SPEAKS: Alan Bromley in the Wall Street Journal:
Mr. Stern often offends, even me, but his free-thinking banter periodically reaches brilliance, and for that he is worth listening to, for me at least--and sometimes my 17-year-old daughter when I drive her to school. (I keep a finger on another station when I know he's going to get too randy.)
I mean, who else reaches those peaks? Neither the droning and fawning of Robin Lehrer, nor the banter of the Wallace father-son tag team.... Barbara Walters and "Mr. CNN Suspenders" don't illuminate anything. A chuckle here, a tear there, but nothing to challenge your perception of anything. Howard dares to make you think....
We can't take the decisions from the people and leave it in the hands of a few judges, moralists, atheists and the pious ultraconservative religious. We can't let Mel Gibson (and his father) alone define the pain of faith (without the love). It must fall into the murky morass of free choice, allowing parents and children to battle it out from generation to generation.
We have so many cultural outlets that if you want opera, rock music or bare-breasted, gun-toting women, you can seek it out--or switch channels. As for our children, their guidance remains the domain of vigilant and caring parents.
As we try to change the geo-political landscape to bring freedom to people suffering under dictatorships, let's remember that a land of freedom means just that. So leave the "under God" phrase be (it didn't hurt me to refuse to recite it, in fact it made me feel special), let Howard Stern be himself, and relish in the fact that with lots of love, forbearance, guidance and a little luck, our society--and our children--will be fine.
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