Blogs at 20 paces: Bozell v. Jarvis

Brent Bozell of Parents Television Council and Jeff Jarvis of BuzzMachine are waging a war of words over the virtual battleground of the Internet. The battle is over the bigger war on broadcast indecency. Bozell managed to besmirch the FCC while he was at it.

Commenting on Jarvis' claim that there were in fact only three distinct complaints against the FCC-fined "Married by America" episode, Bozell said there were far more complaints. He wrote, "Mr. Jarvis doesn't know this, but I know this, and will charge here publicly: the FCC is lying in a deliberate attempt to mislead the public. There were not just 159 complaints on this very smutty Fox show...The FCC has been awash in thousands of complaints, in faxes, emails, phone calls. How do I know this? Because I know of over 4K PTC members who filed formal complaints on this program. Because I can assume many more non-PTC members complained. And because sources inside the FCC itself have confirmed this to me."

Jarvis responded, saying Bozell "...wants to single-handedly censor all media in America to his lowest denominator." He continued, "A am a parent and you do not speak for me. I am a Christian and you do not speak for me. Let me really scare you and tell you that I not only go to church every Sunday, I sing in the choir, I serve as a head of the church's organizing body, I preach sermons, I teach Sunday school. But I also like Howard Stern and Desperate Housewives. Pardon me while I dodge the lightning bolts."

Here is where trying to police the airwaves gets really ugly. In defending free speech, Jarvis noted the right of the "700 Club" to take to the airwaves, despite the fact that he personally finds many of the viewpoints expressed there to be hateful. Who gets to decide what is acceptable and what isn't, and why?

RBR observation:
We've said it before and we'll say it again. Just about every viewer has two potent weapons at their disposal, the dial and the pocketbook. Use them. If you want to make doubly sure you message gets across, don't tell the FCC, tell the network, and more importantly, the advertiser. If enough people do this, both will get the message.

But be ready for the ugly truth: If it doesn't happen, maybe there is no message for the networks and advertisers to get other than the one they're getting now from the ratings companies and their own cash registers.