War is Heck
Sound familiar? No?
Sure, it's an exaggeration to make the point, but there are some PBS stations gunshy about airing World War II footage featuring salty language, and opting instead for a cleansed version.
Bowing to worries about indecency fines, PBS is editing combat footage in an upcoming documentary "The War" for verbal content. Yes, years after Janet Jackson inadvertently/conveniently/nanosecond-ly exposed her nipple during the Super Bowl halftime show and cost stations enormous indecency fines, broadcast networks apparently are still timid about incurring the wrath of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
According to Reuters:
Ken Burns' documentary about World War II will come in two flavors, one with curse words and one without in the hopes that the PBS stations can avoid government fines for indecency...(If for no other reason, the Reuters story is an amusing example of a wire service implying cursewords.)A "clean" version of the film has those words silently wiped out on one feed, while another feed transmits a version that allows viewers to hear the words in the clear.
It's true that given the option of edited or unedited versions, many stations have already opted for the unedited footage. But one PBS affiliate here in Washington, DC is going to show the clean version, and you know it's not going to be the only one.
You would think that documentary footage, from World War II and on PBS, would be pretty safe from a political battle. Heck, many ABC stations broadcast "Saving Private Ryan" unedited in 2004 – when we were more deeply enmeshed in an indecency debate – without being punished by the FCC.
You'd think that. But you'd be wrong. As most of the news accounts report, PBS is wary due to what they see as an inconsistent approach to levying fines by the FCC – and, therefore, playing it safe. Take a look at the Washington Post coverage for a telling quote:
Public television executives say such cases have left them lacking a clear sense of what they can broadcast without facing fines.My $.02 on this matter? I don't think there are too many souls out there in America who would get angrily agitated over the wartime curses from "The Greatest Generation." (And four words during almost 900 minutes, at that.) But even if I'm wrong on that – and I'm sure the mailbox and comment board will point this out – this story serves as further proof that the FCC needs to codify exactly what it is they are policing, and exactly what constitutes a fineable offense."The core problem is, we don't really know what the FCC will do with a complaint because the guidelines aren't clear," PBS's chief content officer, John Boland, said yesterday. "We all feel as confident as we can feel under the circumstances with the 'Saving Private Ryan' decision. But I still think if you're a general manager of a station in a community somewhere in the U.S., you still have to think carefully about whatever jeopardy [airing an unbleeped 'War'] might cause you."