fcc

FCC on the Offensive

Richard T. Kaplar
December 02, 2008 21:26

Say what you will about the FCC, but you have to admit they’re a scrappy bunch when it comes to pursuing their crackdown on broadcast “indecency.”  First they persuaded the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case they lost in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit...

Is the f-word indecent or just coarse and unmannerly?

Ann Althouse
December 01, 2008 14:54

It makes a difference, according to Jeffrey Rosen, talking about the Supreme Court's pending "fleeting expletives" case. (The question is what can the FCC do to broadcasters if Cher suddenly says "People have been telling me I'm on the way out every year, right? So fuck 'em" and so forth.)At the...

Product Placement: Free Speech Or A Threat To Our Children?

Eriq Gardner
November 26, 2008 05:32

By Eriq Gardner It's hard to turn on a television these days and not see some form of integrated advertising. As consumers use DVRs to zap through 30-second commercial spots, broadcasters have reacted by giving advertisers a prominent place within...

A Net Neutrality-Friendly FCC in Our Future?

Daily Kos <>
November 17, 2008 16:30

Of all the Obama transition moves, this is about the best one for the netroots. The Obama-Biden transition team on Friday named two long-time net neutrality advocates to head up its Federal Communications Commission Review team. Susan Crawford, a professor at the University of Michigan Law...

Call Me Ishmael

Patrick Maines
November 17, 2008 12:44

In Herman Melville’s novel, Captain Ahab’s obsession is with Moby Dick.  In the morality play that’s been running for years at the FCC, Chairman Kevin Martin’s obsession is with “a la carte” for cable TV.   Missing from this analogy is a...