Media Ethics/Media Law

The Media Law case I decided to talk about is from Boston College's EagleiOnline. EagleiOnline is a website for students of BC that are studying Law.

The article is titled: "FCC Appeals Adverse Ruling in Censorship Case". The case took place in 2010.

First off I just had to say something interesting about Fox. Whats funny is, Fox is a big Republican news station, yet there regular Fox channel actually appears very Liberal, and many Fox adult shows make big jokes about Republican news anchors and politicians. Funny huh.

So anyways this case is between the FCC and Fox. The FCC asked the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, to reconsider one of their court decisions. The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit stated that the "indecency policy of the FCC was unconstitutionally vague and it created a chilling effect on normal non-offensive broadcasts in general" (Noah)"  This was ruled back in July of 2010. Basically this case came from a case originally in 2009, and then brought to the Second Circuit in 2010 by way of the Supreme Court, to decide whether the case was in violation of the 1st amendment, basically violating freedom of speech. Basically the main argument in this case is that the FCC is trying to trick television stations and companies by not being clear about what they prohibit. It is believed that the Second Circuit will require the FCC to rewrite some of their laws to be more clear, and explain not only what is considered obscene and profane, but why they should be censored. It is believed that the Case will go to the Supreme Court sometime this year.


It will be interesting to see how this case turns out because based on the article it sounds like the FCC is going to tell the Second Circuit, how dare you for not siding with us. In my opinion the FCC is good for allowing young children not to view content not suited for them, the problem is when it comes to adult oriented shows, not including sexual content, the FCC has too many violations of freedom of speech. I think what might also help Fox's adult cartoon shows is by moving there time slots to later at night so that younger children wont be able to see as many of these shows, as long as they go to bed on time.