Center for Creative Voices in the Media Rebuts FCC’s Ruling

CENTER FOR CREATIVE VOICES IN THE MEDIA REBUTS FCC'S RULING
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
A Q&A with Jonathan Rintels, executive director of the Center for Creative Voices in Media, a nonprofit group that promotes free speech in the media. The interview focuses on the ABC's decision to file an appeal of the Federal Communications Commission's proposed indecency fine against a 2003 airing of NYPD Blue that clearly showed the backside (and quite a lot of the rest) of an attractive female character as she was preparing to step into a shower. "We always talk about the gray area and the line between indecency and what’s allowable on television. What this decision did was to make this gray area exponentially larger. This scene that they are fining on NYPD Blue was obviously looked at by network standards and practices, who are experts in that area and do their jobs very well. It was allowed through by the lawyers. And yet the FCC decision comes back as though it is pornography. The rhetoric the FCC uses indicates that this scene, which was allowed by ABC executives, is far over the line. They used language like "graphic," "repeated pandering," "titillating" and "shocking." Who knows where the line is now? It is all gray. How is a network supposed to respond to that?"
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