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They’re bleeping our soldiers again

11 comments on They’re bleeping our soldiers again

They’re bleeping our soldiers again

: PBS’ Frontline spent months filming a report on soldiers in Iraq, A Company of Soldiers, set to air on Feb. 22. Guess what: Soldiers under fire tend to use no-no words. And this caused PBS to wimp out and bleep the words. Under pressure, they agreed to also send an uncensored version. Frontline Executive Producer David Fanning wrote a stirring memo to PBS stations:

…This is a film about young men at war, often in combat, and always in danger. As you might expect, the language of these soldiers is sprinkled with expletives, especially at their moments of greatest fear and stress. As we edited the program, we were judicious, but came to believe that some of that language was an integral part of our journalistic mission: to give viewers a realistic portrait of our soldiers at war. We feel strongly that the language of war should not be sanitized and that there is nothing indecent about its use in this context….

Our attorneys, including outside counsel, have advised us that the expletives in

11 responses to “They’re bleeping our soldiers again”

  1. Steve Rhodes Avatar
    Steve Rhodes

    I’ve posted the full statement along with some background. In San Francisco, A Company of Soldiers will air at 10 pm which is during the FCC safe harbor. That, along with FCC ruling on Saving Private Ryan mentioned in the statement should make it clear no station would be fined.
    The documentary they’re airing March 1st, A Soldier’s Heart will also be censored unless there is enough pressure to make PBS change their policy.
    I’ve watched the first half hour of Company and it would definately be distracting to hear bleeps when the soldiers of the company are being attacked. Everyone watching the program will realize that soldiers use that kind of language during combat and when they are just hanging out.
    It was bad enough to have to endure the bleeps when POV showed Wattstax last fall.

  2. Hovig Avatar
    Hovig

    I wish there were a way for producers to censor their products and allow end users to decide whether or not to apply the censorship. Like, my TV settings would say “bleep out all f-words,” and the TV producer would simply flag all f-words when they appear, and my TV would bleep them out when they came up.
    Maybe it sounds funny-ha-ha to give a person a menu with the seven Carlin words, or a menu with various naked body parts listed, or choices between different displays of affection, or others with selections of various violent acts or fright-inducing situations, but on the other hand, at least it gives people a fighting chance to keep the TV on without having to worry about who’s seeing what when.
    Choice is good. Isn’t it? Go ahead and laugh, but I think this would be a great little product. It would certainly end this energy-wasting debate.
    If nothing else, it will allow society a choice, or better yet, it will at least allow society to acclimate itself slowly toward the future. Maybe a parent will play with the parental controls vigilantly when they have their first child, less vigilantly for their second or third; maybe one parent will be vigilant, but their children will be less vigilant with their own kids.
    Again, choice is good … right?

  3. Steve Rhodes Avatar
    Steve Rhodes

    All recent tv sets already have a v-chip which very few parents use.
    Frontline is airing at 10 pm on most PBS stations and will be watched mostly by adults. There will be a warning that the program contains the kind of language soldiers use. Adults should be able to see the uncensored program.
    The few people who might object shouldn’t be able to decide for the rest of us what we watch.

  4. Jon Avatar
    Jon

    There is no way the American public will tolerate listening to our troops use the same language in battle that the Vice President of the United States used on the floor of the Senate.
    Any PBS executive who tried to run such footage unedited would no doubt be deemed a “major league a**hole” by the Bush administration.

  5. Jim S Avatar
    Jim S

    I read about an example of something similar being done by a private company recently. I play computer games and read several magazines on the subject. In writing about the hypocrisy of the acceptance of violence but rejection of sexual content the magazine’s editor told of another strange dichotomy. They had done a really great piece of cover art for an extremely popular World War II themed first person shooter. The game’s publishers refused to let it be printed because a GI on the cover had a cigarette hanging from his mouth. What a shocking thing to see a soldier from that era doing.

  6. Hovig Avatar
    Hovig

    Steve – I’m not sure if your comments were directed at me, because I didn’t recognize my ideas in your reflection of them.
    The v-chip is of course extremely crude. It’s a nonsensical solution from every angle. It blocks access to the entire show — as opposed to merely blocking the objectionable material — and it uses an insultingly primitive MPAA-style rating system. I would suggest a finer-grained control, much like the parental controls offered by many internet services, and which seem to be quite popular.
    Also, you are apparently not aware that PBS is broadcast in many markets, such as my own, at 9pm.
    A show like the PBS show being discussed by us now, or even one like American Chopper, would be completely blocked with a v-chip, whereas with a selective blocker, one could only proscribe those minor elements one did not want. I’d imagine that in a rowdy bar, the TV would be set to play all the raw language, but in a CompUSA or other sensitive place, it wouldn’t.
    (Also, if you watch a show like American Chopper, “bleeping” has gotten very clever; instead of a beep, they use the sound of an compressed-air tool, to make it seem as though no censorship occured at all. I’d bet a new TV could offer a wide array of “bleep” sounds, including simple silence. A show like the PBS one, if they wanted to be unobtrusive about it, could use the sound of a gunshot to cover the words, and no one would even know there was censorship.)
    As to the simplistic platitude with which you concluded your comment, I can only answer that all one restrictive ideological dictate must not be replaced with another (from “block absolutely everything” to “block absolutely nothing”). The world isn’t correct when the “right” ideology wins. It’s correct when everyone gets to make as many of their own choices as they can.

  7. Doug Avatar
    Doug

    Showing the public what a war is really like is what this production is about. That means that language should be left in tact and not bleeped out. These soldiers are over there fighting so that we can sit back and argue about our principals and what should or should not be aired on TV. If that is how are soldiers choose to express themselves while risking their lives, so be it. If PBS can show naked people who live in the jungle and do not find that not offensive then the words of our soldiers should not be deemed inappropriate. If they are over there fighting for freedom for another country, let the soldiers have a right to speak their minds without restrictions.

  8. Steve Rhodes Avatar
    Steve Rhodes

    Hovig, I was addressing you.
    The point I was trying to make is tech solutions don’t work.
    There are criticisms of the internet blocking software. It is still crude. That is why Jeff has asked us before to not use the kind of language in the documentary, so his site won’t be blocked.
    And I wasn’t being simplistic or talking about ideology. A few people only want content they think is suitable for children.
    This is a documentary. There is no way Frontline would allow the sounds of gunfire when someone says f—-. And there is far too much gunfire in the show.
    I just watched the rest of a preview tape and it makes me angry that PBS would insist on running the censored feed. This is a very realistic and moving portrayal of what soldiers are going through. It should be seen without any distracting bleeps.
    I realize that some stations air it at 9 pm, but they can move it back an hour if they have concerns. Or they could run the censored feed. In the past, the hard feed was uncensored and there was a soft censored feed stations could take if they chose to.

  9. Eileen Avatar
    Eileen

    Let the soldiers speak – fully – after 10:00 p.m. in all time zones. Easy, eh? Who lost Anything in the process?
    The Courts and the FCC ain’t so stupid after all.
    Is this a first amendment tragedy? Not in anyone’s wildest stretch. So why, instead, don’t we focus on Real free speech issues, like Eason Jordan purporting to speak on behalf of the U.S. at Davos?
    Apparently Anything goes for MSM on many levels, for about 2 more seconds.

  10. Steve Rhodes Avatar
    Steve Rhodes

    Some stations are doing that. There is some coverage in today’s papers.
    From a good piece in the Seattle Times by Kay McFadden:

    Kurt Wimmer, an attorney specializing in [the] First Amendment…advised ABC affiliates on airing “Saving Private Ryan” and recently counseled “Frontline.”
    He concluded that the contents of “A Company of Soldiers” are valid in the context of news.
    “It seems to me that if you have the use of the F-word and S-word in the heat of battle, it’s not indecent because they are not sexual or excretory,” Wimmer said. Moreover, “This is actual news footage; it really occurred; it is critical to the integrity of the show.”
    Those words, he added, are “part of life. It almost seems unpatriotic to say you’ve got to sugar-coat a war that we are paying for and that people are dying for.”

    They’re going to show the uncensored version in Seattle.
    From an article in the LA Times:

    Some PBS member stations said they would air the program after 10 p.m., when children were presumably not watching.
    In Los Angeles, KCET will air the edited version at 9 p.m. Tuesday, but viewers who want to see the original broadcast will have the chance to do so at 11:30 p.m. on Feb. 26, according to spokeswoman Laurel Lambert.
    KPBS in San Diego will air the unedited show at 10 p.m. Tuesday, according to General Manager Doug Myrland.
    Stations in other markets are taking a more conservative approach.
    Executives at Mississippi Public Broadcasting and at WKNO in Memphis, Tenn., said they would show only the cleaned-up version of “A Company of Soldiers.”
    “It’s something we actually appreciate,” Mississippi Public Broadcasting Executive Director Marie Antoon said of PBS’ decision. “We have had [viewer] complaints sent to the FCC because of PBS material.”

    PBS Warns Stations of Risks From Profanity in War Film – NY Times
    PBS edits language in war documentary – AP

  11. bill Avatar
    bill

    Will “Spelling” get pass from Mrs. Cheney or will she defend her daughter no matter who it is?