The FCC v. Pacifica Foundation: GOVERNMENT REGULATIONS ON RADIO BROADCASTING

In 1978 a radio station owned by Pacifica Foundation Broadcasting out of New York City was doing a program on contemporary attitudes toward the use of language. This broadcast occurred on a mid-afternoon weekday. Immediately before the broadcast the station announced a disclaimer telling listeners that the program would include "sensitive language which might be regarded as offensive to some."(Gunther, 1991) As a part of the program the station decided to air a 12 minute monologue called "Filthy Words" by comedian George Carlin. The introduction of Carlin's "routine" consisted of, according to Carlin, "words you couldn't say on the public air waves."(Carlin, 1977) The introduction to Carlin's monologue listed those words and repeated them in a variety of colloquialisms:

I was thinking about the curse words and the swear words, the cuss words and the words that you can't say, that you're not supposed to say all the time. I was thinking one night about the words you couldn't say on the public, ah, airwaves, um, the ones you definitely wouldn't s

If the government could allow this type of speech to be regulated then they must also take into account that regulating indecent speech would effect many other integral parts of broadcasting. For instance, "these rationales could justify the banning from radio a myriad of literary works...they could support the suppression of a good deal of political speech, such as the Nixon tapes; and they could even provide the basis for imposing sanctions for the broadcast of certain portions of the bible."(Gunther, 1991) Carlin's monologue was speech, there is no doubt about that, and it does present a point of view. Carlin tried to show that "the words it uses are "harmless" and that our attitudes toward them are essentially silly."(Gunther, 1991) They did not object to this point of view but did object to the way in which it is expressed.

Stern, H. (1995). Miss America. New York: Regan Books.

Many people in the United States do not deem these words as offensive. In fact many people use these words daily and as a part of conversation. "In this context the Court's decision could be seen as another of the dominant culture's inevitable efforts to force those groups who do not share its mores to conform to it's way of thinking, acting, and speaking."(Gunther, 1991) Therefore, the Supreme Court looked upon Carlin's monologue as indecent but not obscene.

This landmark case gave the FCC the "power to regulate radio broadcasts that are indecent but not obscene." (Gunther, 1991) What does that mean, exactly? According to the government it means that the FCC can only regulate broadcasts. They can not censor broadcasts, that is determine what is offensive in the matters of speech.

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Approximate Word count = 2387
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page double spaced)