The Daily Stern
: OFF WITH THEIR HEADS: Ernie Miller gets into a rightful and proper snitfit as he fisks Federal Censor Michael Powell‘s misplaced trumphalism after the Clear Quisling settlement:
Clear Channel copped a plea that some of its broadcasts were indecent. We never find out which specific broadcasts though. “Mistakes were made, although we aren’t quite sure exactly what.” This is actually one of the scariest sentences in Powell’s statement. These are the sort of government settlements one expects in dictatorships. The government gets people or organizations to admit some vague guilt, but how, exactly, they violated the law is never clearly demonstrated.
: Ernie — who has been a leader in media analyzing the importance of the FCC’s expansion into profanity — also wonders why the Clear Quisling decree does not mention profanity.
