Yesterday marked the 50th anniversary of a court ruling that found that Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" had "redeeming social importance" and was not in violation of obscenity laws. Customs officials had seized 520 copies of the poem that had been imported from a printer in London, claiming the drugs, sex, and four letter words made it obscene, and the San Francisco police agreed. A suit was filed against Lawrence Ferlinghetti, head of the domestic publisher, but the right to artistic and political expression prevailed. The poem hails the nascent counterculture of America and celebrates the death of conformity, and at the time this case marked a grand victory for freedom of speech.
But as the New York Times reports today, Pacifica and WBAI in New York wanted to commemorate it, but fear of a draconian Federal Communications Commission led them to just post archival audio of Ginsberg reading his poem, interviews, and a panel discussion on the First Amendment on the Pacifica website. WBAI's lawyer thought it was too risky to air the poem; a $350,000-per-dirty-word fine from the FCC could put the station out of business.
When WBAI tried to clear it with the FCC before airing it, the commission told them they don't respond to that sort of request. Says one of their spokesfolks: "The FCC is barred by law from trying to prevent the broadcast of any point of view." But we will gladly impose our puritanical values on you after the fact.
So today's radio stations, networks, and any other types of federally-regulated communicators have a choice of either heavily self-censoring, or putting content out there and hoping that it doesn't anger an FCC run by tyrants. Most are inclined toward the former, especially stations that aren't owned by well-heeled corporations, which is the case with publicly-funded WBAI.
But even the bigger players live in fear of the FCC. In recent months there have been several instances of self-censorship that might seem overly cautious: Several stations aired "clean" versions of Ken Burns' "The War," and Fox bleeped out both Ray Romano's use of the word "screwing" and Sally Field's "godddamn" at the Emmy's.
Fifty years forward, two steps back.
--Kate Sheppard
