The word none dare speak

The word none dare speak

Seattle Times: The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in FCC v. Fox Television Stations was the wrong one. The federal government has no authority to post a list of words banned on the air.

The nine members of the U.S. Supreme Court have produced more than 20,000 words on a case involving two of them. The question in FCC v. Fox Television Stations was whether the federal government could penalize a TV station if an on-air guest said one of two Anglo-Saxon expletives. The court said it could, ignoring the First Amendment.

The court declined to write out the two offending words, but said one started with “f” and the other with “s,” so you know what they are. The first one The Times has not used. We have a right to use it, but we don’t, and we don’t welcome it in the mass media. The second we have used once a year for the past five years: four times in quoted statements — one of them by President Bush — and one, on this page, in a syndicated column by the late Molly Ivins.

Who decides is the issue

These are The Times’ decisions, not the government’s. We make them for our readers, and live by what our readers decide about us. That is freedom — and it ought to be the same for Fox Television as it is for a newspaper.

The Fox cases both involve the “Billboard Music Awards”: an “F-word” uttered in 2002 by Cher and both words in 2003 by Nicole Richie. Both usages got buzz, particularly since they were said by women. Then it was over.

Except legally it wasn’t. The FCC issued an order, the stations sued, and it went into the court system for six years. Now comes a decision that does not even address the central issue in the case: freedom of the press.

The issue is not whether the words the court considered but would not write should spread everywhere. We think they should be contained. But in the American system it is the job of parents, teachers, homeowners, organizations and publications to set the standards in their domains. The Times does it and we expect Fox to do it.

The Founding Fathers did not trust politicians or political appointees to do it.