I hope the FCC fines the hell out of CBS. This is just another "camel-nose in the tent" tactic by CBS to try to get more profanity onto the public airwaves.
That is AFA's argument, and I think is understandable, but I disagree.
Surely you are joking. Do you think they should not show the documentary?
What a shame you couldn't keep your own potty mouth clean while doing your best to strike that all-important blow for the nanny state.
If the public is outraged by the Janet Jackson incident and other examples of potential indecency broadcast on public airwaves, then fines would certainly be upheld in a court of law. And then some. Whether or not a sufficient percentage of viewers are in fact as outraged as you are is an open question, but I certainly have no problem with that outrage. In spite of what outfits like the AFA say about programming that stand out as wild distortions, which is certainly the case here.
For this particular program, I have no problem believing that the percentage of viewers holding any outrage at the broadcast of the this extremely pertinent documentary footage--unedited, unsanitized, uncensored--would be absurdly small. And that if the matter were to see a court of law, that it would be laughed out of court. You are free to disagree.
If, as is claimed, CBS views this as a wedge to simply program as much profanity as possible in the future, then the percentage of viewers sufficiently outraged should serve as insurance that the network would be appropriately sanctioned.
Of course, if most of the people complaining about programming are actually a small number generating multiple complaints under false pretenses, as has long been alleged, that would change things considerably, now, wouldn't it.
What the AFA says about this program is absolutely outrageous, and I seriously doubt that it could possibly fit any reasonable--or even a nanny state--definition of indecent, and certainly not obscene.
I don't see why it is that conservatives wish to appear to be so unbelievably short-sighted and foolish over such a ridiculous issue. Especially given the subject matter. Viewing the profanity in this program as gratuitous is a very odd way of looking at things. And if CBS deserves to be fined, I can't see why it should be over this program.
That won't happen. The leftists like you, who want the nation to forget this atrocity, are no longer in charge.
Of course this documentary about a national tragedy is just that -- a public document. And just as the trial, e.g., of the Scottsboro Boys in our grandfathers' time was amazing in its frankness in dealing with sexual issues and biological evidence, so nobody who deals with the public business should be looking the other way or scrunching his eyes shut and generally playing sissy.
That said, I think it's a good argument, that CBS is using this essential public document and all the dramatic power in it, to push a vendetta against the idea of community standards, prurience, and what constitutes acceptable family programming. CBS is vindictively trying to reverse the well-deserved slapping-around they got after the Janet Jackson Superbowl incident, and to take back the initiative from the FCC on public decency.
CBS's position is, we will decide what "community standards" are! (And we'll use money as our metric, but that's another matter......) And public policy is just the opposite: No, the networks and licensees do not decide, the public decides.
CBS deserves to lose this issue, because they're punks, and this scam proves it.
That all said, how would I handle the documentary? I'd put it on later at night, when all the kids are in bed anyway, and I'd go ahead and run the warnings about uncut footage and soundtracks, and show the documentary intact.
And then, I'd have the chairman of the FCC pull the president of CBS aside and rip his face off for about 15 minutes for having tried to be a punk, and I'd leave him with absolutely no doubt about who was in charge of the question of community standards, and if he ever tried to screw with the FCC again, it'd cost his network $50,000,000 just for trying, plus whatever else I decided to tack on for his having been a punk again after I told him to knock it off.