Kindle
Last night in LA, I went to a big fucking party thrown by the fucking LA Press Club to show some fucking support for Sandra Fucking Tsing Loh, snarky host of "The Loh Life." The radio humorist was abruptly sacked from KCRW after her fucking engineer failed to bleep a certain fucking four letter word from a fucked-out taped comedic monologue. Fuck!
Her commentaries had previously included deliberately-bleeped words for comic effect, but the production goof came at a time of intense concern by broadcasters over new FCC scrutiny. Nipplegate, Howard Stern, now Loh. Station manager Ruth Seymour later apologized and offered to re-hire, but Loh declined. The whole story's here (and you can still hear Loh on NPR's Marketplace, here). LA Times update here.
There's good reason for concern, as evidenced by a recent decision by congress -- which passed 391-22-- to substantially increase fines, penalties and license reviews for 'indecent' or 'profane' material. BoingBoing pal Ernest Miller says:
"For years the FCC has been regulating 'indecent' speech. Recently, of course, this has become a big deal, what with Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction and Bono saying 'This is really, really f-ing great!' at the Golden Globes. Now, however, the FCC has really taking a big step forward in regulating speech. For the first time they have declared speech not only 'indecent' but 'profane' as well. If the FCC's argument about profane speech is upheld, any 'grossly offensive' speech, whether or not related to sex or excretion, could be banned from the airwaves."Link to Corante post on the FCC's new moves to regulate profanity in broadcasting. Update: Stern fined, Bono's remark ruled profane, in FCC decision: Link