PTC wants FCC to be accountable
When the FCC his Fox with an indecency fine for its "Married by America" whipped cream fiasco, it cited 159 formal complaints by US citizens as a catalyst for the decision. That came as news to Brent Bozell at the Parents Television Council, however. His organization, on its own, filed 4,073 complaints. He wants the way the FCC tallies these things changed.
"We call on the FCC to amend its accounting practices," wrote Bozell. "PTC members filed over 4K complaints concerning 'Married By America.' It's utterly deceptive to say there were only 159 complaints received. The FCC needs to count each and every complaint, even if the majority complaining are PTC members."
Bozell says his organization has lodged over 24K complaints over the CBS "Big Brother" "f-word" incident. He wants them all counted.
RBR observation:
Complaint/comment inflation is upon us, just like other forms of inflation have hit in so many other areas. How about pinball and video game score inflation? How about inflated passing stats now that footballs four-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust days are gone? Soda sizes at fast food places is another.
The problem the FCC has faced is the abrupt change to the nature of complaints/comments brought about by the Internet. If you've ever looked at a large sampling in a hot category, like the ownership ruling, you will see gazillions of comments that are exactly the same, or slightly modified, with only the signature differentiating one from another. These come pre-written from activist websites. All you have to do to comment is type your name and click your mouse.
The basic truth is that the Internet has democratized the complaint process to allow the participation the semi-motivated and the semi-literate. Anybody can click a mouse and send their "Polly-want-a-cracker" comment wherever the webmaster wants them to.
But Bozell is right. It does mean something when 4K people participate in an organized complaint party. Maybe the FCC should tally the total number of comments, with subtotals for any templates used by whatever number of individuals is practicable to track.
The important thing is to not go nuts comparing Internet complaint/comment figures to the kinds of numbers generated when snail mail was all that was available. Snail mail took much more effort to produce, and you had to lick a stamp. Email campaigns can be compared only to other email campaigns.
Are you reading this from a forwarded email?
