I have yet to understand what the hell it is that the Federal Communications Commission does. The FCC is charged with regulating all non-federal use of the broadcasting spectrum. The problem is that that spectrum is so wide, diverse and teeming with stuff, there's really no way to effectively regulate it. Consequently, the FCC stands around, getting in the way and impeding progress.
Next week, the FCC is giving a report to Congress regarding the censorship of violence on television. In this report, it will be giving a recommendation on how to address this problem. In effect, this gives the FCC virtually unlimited power with which to thwart the evil media empire that is spreading violent propaganda amongst our children. Even the FCC knows it's useless - it's asking Congress for permission to do its job.
The problem with the FCC is that it's trying to please everybody, which is not possible. You'd think that a branch of government would not be concerned with making people happy - it's not their strong suit. Look at other departments of the government, like the Environmental Protection Agency, which only tries to please liberal Californian hippies, or the Internal Revenue Service, which actively tries to displease absolutely everyone. But the FCC tries to cater to everyone, which is not the job of a government agency. The job of any government agency is to act in the best interest of the country and to uphold the principles outlined in the Constitution.
The FCC screws this concept up in that it acts more like a lobbyist or activist group than a federal agency. Remember when Janet Jackson's breast was exposed during the halftime of the Super Bowl and the FCC got its panties all in a bunch because children might have been exposed to one second of accidental broadcasted indecency? The FCC was the most vocal party involved in that whole incident, actually going so far as to take a moral stance on the issue. The FCC acted more like an outraged third-party interest group than the group that should have been in charge of the incident in the first place.
But now the FCC is attacking violent programming, which doesn't make a lot of sense either. Not 10 years ago, the FCC started to require certain televisions to be installed with a V-chip, a device that allows parents to block violent content. The problem is that nobody uses the V-chip, because violent programming on TV is the only programming worth watching. If you can't turn on the TV and see Magnum P.I. punch some Hawaiian drug lord in the face or see a documentary about gazelles getting ripped to shreds by crocodiles, what's the point of watching?
But the FCC maintains that the programming on television is too violent and that it is, in turn, making our children violent. But violence stems from things that people see in real life, not what they see on television. If a child grows up in a neighborhood filled with gang violence and is exposed to it every day, is it really television's fault if that same child goes out and acts violently?
Real life events shape us more than flickering images on a TV set ever could. Yet the FCC still wants to crack down on violence, citing that the incessant coverage of the Virginia Tech massacre is damaging to our children and that perhaps the lax restrictions concerning violent media might have influenced the gunman. This is the stupidity of the FCC again; it doesn't realize no normal child watches CNN all day.
And for the record, the Virginia Tech killings were caused by a disturbed individual who had a lot of real-life problems not caused by watching too many Yosemite Sam cartoons.
Write to Paul at pjmetz@bsu.edu
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