FCC -- and media -- duped by Brent Bozell's complaint factory
: First I revealed that the FCC's largest fine in history was based on only three original letters and now Mediaweek has a great story revealing that up to 99.9 percent of complaints to the FCC come straight from King Prig Brent Bozell's self-annointed Parents Television Council.
It's shocking enough that the FCC has not revealed this on its own and it took a bloggers' FOIA request to start to reveal the lie. To me, that indicates that the FCC was a knowing accomplice in this; they went along with Bozell's shock troops because they wanted to.
But here's the real shocker:
Now go back to every single news story that "reported" floods of outrage and complaint about everything from Janet Jackson's breast to Howard Stern's farts to Fox's whipped cream and discount that by 99+ percent. And now tell me whether that's a flood of outrage. And, more important, all you news commentators who pontificated about an upsurge of moral values and a shift to cultural conservatism in America, tell me whether you're going to reexamine the conclusions you jumped to and correct yourselves.
As I said in my original post about the three letters to the FCC, this is like an old Foreign Legion movie in which three soldiers act like three hundred by putting helmets on sticks over the fort's walls. Only stupid foes fall for that. The FCC and reporters are the stupid foes here.
Here's what Todd Shields reports in Mediaweek:
In an appearance before Congress in February, when the controversy over Janet Jackson’s Super Bowl moment was at its height, Federal Communications Commission chairman Michael Powell laid some startling statistics on U.S. senators.
The number of indecency complaints had soared dramatically to more than 240,000 in the previous year, Powell said. The figure was up from roughly 14,000 in 2002, and from fewer than 350 in each of the two previous years. There was, Powell said, “a dramatic rise in public concern and outrage about what is being broadcast into their homes.”
What Powell did not reveal—apparently because he was unaware—was the source of the complaints.
I don't know why Shields says Powell was unaware but I doubt that. When I reported my story on the FCC for The Nation, the FCC flack wouldn't let me quote him but he fully acknowledged that the vast majority of complaints came from a factory.
According to a new FCC estimate obtained by Mediaweek, nearly all indecency complaints in 2003—99.8 percent—were filed by the Parents Television Council, an activist group.
This year, the trend has continued, and perhaps intensified.
Through early October, 99.9 percent of indecency complaints—aside from those concerning the Janet Jackson “wardrobe malfunction” during the Super Bowl halftime show broadcast on CBS— were brought by the PTC, according to the FCC analysis dated Oct. 1. (The agency last week estimated it had received 1,068,767 complaints about broadcast indecency so far this year; the Super Bowl broadcast accounted for over 540,000, according to commissioners’ statements.)
The prominent role played by the PTC has raised concerns among critics of the FCC’s crackdown on indecency. “It means that really a tiny minority with a very focused political agenda is trying to censor American television and radio,” said Jonathan Rintels, president and executive director of the Center for Creative Voices in Media, an artists’ advocacy group....
Wake up, reporters. Do the real story. A tiny fringe group and the FCC are trying to censor our media and cripple the First Amendment and lazy reporters are swallowing their garbage as they draw grand conclusions about the state of debate in America. It's time to tell the real story. It's time to stop them.
Your Yahoo?
: The new MyYahoo is up and I'm surprised to be among 14 blogs listed under lifestyle. Yes, I am a lifestyle.
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