By Paul Rule
President, Marquest Research
Independence Day is one of my favorite holidays. It’s just plain fun. Fireworks and frivolity with just the right touch of patriotism during the warm days and nights of summer – lots of celebrations of American freedoms and the 10 amendments that form our constitutional Bill of Rights. It’s a shame that about half of us don’t really mean it and are just paying lip service to the concept.
Exhibit A: Last month Rasmussen Reports surveyed 1,000 American adults. Forty-nine per cent felt that the FCC should regulate the internet the way it regulates TV and radio. The report of the survey in Media Life online magazine went on to say that only 35% feel the Web should continue to be free of government control, with the other 16% undecided.
What is it about the First Amendment and the importance of freedom of speech and the press that half of us don’t get? Isn’t this the same as saying that 49% of Americans think we’re not bright enough to make our own decisions as to what we can say, see and hear?
Let’s go back to why the predecessor to the Federal Communications Commission was created in the first place. Its major function was to be the traffic cop for broadcasting and other radio communications. You couldn’t have two radio stations operating in the same area at the same time on the same radio frequency. They would interfere with each other so the public couldn’t listen to either. Thus the FCC’s job was to assign dial positions to stations and make sure that efficient use was made of the radio frequency spectrum, which was seen as the property of the public in general.
Newspapers and magazines, since they don’t use the public airwaves and can’t interfere with each other in a technical sense, historically have been protected from government regulation by the U.S. Constitution’s trusty Bill of Rights.
Nearly since its creation, the FCC has been the target of morals crusaders who wish to expand its mandate and use its traffic cop function as an excuse to clean up perceived affronts to public decency. (Witness the ongoing harangues against the “seven words you can’t say on television” made famous by the recently-departed and already sorely-missed George Carlin.)
Are you a “grown-up”? Do you really still need a nanny, someone to burp you and place hands over your ears and eyes so you won’t have to hear or see that “nastiness” or decide for yourself what viewpoints to consider?
The FCC should concentrate on two major tasks. First, they must assure technically-adequate and fair access to the frequency spectrum. Second, they should instruct us as to where to find the tuning knobs, content filters and off switches for our TVs, radios and other devices so we can make our own decisions as to what we want to allow in our homes.
A belated happy July 4th to you. If you waved the flag to celebrate our Bill of Rights, but think the FCC should regulate internet content, you’re a hypocrite, and shame on you.
Paul Rule is President of MARQUEST MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT RESEARCH in Beaufort, NC.