WND MEDIA
3 SECONDS OF PORN ON TV NEWS HAS CLIMACTIC COST
FCC again begins enforcing decency standards after 8-year hiatus
In an abrupt reversal of previous enforcement standards, the Federal Communications Commission unanimously voted to begin implementing federal broadcast indecency laws after an eight-year hiatus.
The first enforcement incident came against television station WDBJ in Roanoke, Virginia, regarding a July 12, 2012, 6 p.m. broadcast news clip that featured three seconds of an explicit porn film. The station’s fine for violating broadcast indecency laws came to $325,000.
“The FCC is the guardian of broadcast decency and it must enforce the law,” stated Dawn Hawkins, executive director of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, or NCSE. “We praise FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler for initiating this enforcement action and for the message it will send to broadcasters everywhere.”
The end of the enforcement hiatus may have to do with the new FCC director, who was sworn in Nov. 4, 2013.
“Although the previous chairman, Julius Genachowski, did fight against challenges to the FCC’s enforcement authority mounted by the networks, there were no enforcement actions during his tenure,” Melissa Henson, director of grass roots advocacy and education with Parents Television Council, said in an interview with WND. “He was more focused on expanding broadband and other priorities.”
As a result of the previous chairman’s focus, the FCC did not aggressively pursue indecency standards, even when broadcasters aired content such as gang rape, child molestation and lewdness.
“It’s good to know that when the FCC does issue fines,” continued Henson, “they will be punitive, unlike what we’ve seen in the past when fines were merely the cost of doing business for big broadcasters.”
The federal indecency law, 18 U. S. C. 1464, and FCC rules prohibit indecent material on broadcast TV and radio between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. The FCC defines broadcast indecency as “language or material that, in context, depicts or describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium, sexual or excretory organs or activities.”
Dawn Hawkins, executive director of National Center on Sexual Exploitation, notes many networks and stations have ignored the laws for years.
“The FCC is the guardian of broadcast decency and it must enforce the law. We praise FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler for initiating this enforcement action and for the message it will send to broadcasters everywhere.”
There are two categories subject to FCC scrutiny: obscene content and broadcast decency.
According to the FCC website, obscene material is not protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution and cannot be broadcast at any time. The Supreme Court has established that to be considered obscene, material must meet a three-pronged test:
- An average person, applying contemporary community standards, must find that the material, as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest.
- The material must depict or describe, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by applicable law.
- The material, taken as a whole, must lack serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.
Broadcast decency laws are deliberately more vague and are subject to time restrictions. The FCC has defined broadcast indecency as “language or material that, in context, depicts or describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium, sexual or excretory organs or activities.”
Indecent programming contains patently offensive sexual or excretory material that does not rise to the level of obscenity.
“The language concerning indecency is of necessity somewhat vague – because the FCC can’t possibly anticipate everything the networks might come up with, and if the language were more specific, the networks would do everything but that which is specifically proscribed by law,” noted Henson. “Violence is not considered indecent.”
“We applaud and thank FCC Chairman Wheeler and FCC commissioners Clyburn, O’Rielly, Pai and Rosenworcel for honoring their respective promises to enforce the law,” said PTC President Tim Winter. “But we also remind them that today must not be the conclusion of indecency enforcement; rather it must be just the beginning of FCC enforcement action.”
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2015/03/3-seconds-of-porn-on-tv-news-has-climactic-cost/#S2rAhJeeG6qQTTdX.99My comments: America, having REJECTED God and His Word will have a difficult time defining Indecency, as God is the ONLY ONE Who has.
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