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The first and last time…
…you’ll probably see me praise Fox:
Fox Refuses To Pay FCC Indecency Fine
By Frank Ahrens
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 25, 2008; Page D01
In an unusually aggressive step, Fox Broadcasting yesterday refused to pay a $91,000 indecency fine levied by the Federal Communications Commission for an episode of a long-canceled reality television show, even as the network fights two other indecency fines in the Supreme Court.
The FCC proposed fining all 169 Fox-owned and affiliate stations a total of $1.2 million in 2004 for airing a 2003 episode of “Married by America,” which featured digitally obscured nudity and whipped-cream-covered strippers.
Fox appealed immediately after the FCC ruling. Last month — four years later — the FCC changed its mind, saying it would fine only the 13 Fox stations located in cities that generated viewer complaints about the program. That reduced the fine to $91,000.
Despite the sharp reduction, Fox said it would not pay the fine on principle, calling it “arbitrary and capricious, inconsistent with precedent, and patently unconstitutional” in a statement released yesterday.
6 Responses to “The first and last time…”
How one thing on Fox can be construed as more indecent than anything else on the same network is ridiculous.
“digitally obscured nudity” is indecent?
what next? bleeped-out swears?
i swear we’re this close to enforcing thought crimes.
I still don’t give Fox credit for anything but being hypocrites. They fight this while their news network pretends to be the morality police. It is the Fox news viewer types that push for such FCC morality laws.
This time. But it wasn’t so long ago that “liberals” were the ones pushing for them.
From the article, “[Gore] wasn’t out to censor the objectionable material. “I’m a strong believer in the First Amendment,” she says. Instead, Gore continues to advocate “consumer information in the marketplace.”
I have no problems with labels on things. That is a far cry from censoring or fining.
Those labels were an excuse for stores like Walmart to stop carrying recordings that didn’t fit their political world view. McCain, Lieberman, and Hillary Clinton were all on the bandwagon.