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FCC Flunks Math in Counting Complaints, Copps Says 12/18/2002 Describes Agency's Cavalier Attitude in Morality in Media-Exclusive Interview
"Sometimes they'll say, 'We don't consider an e-mail a complaint unless it's accompanied by a tape or a transcript,' or other times they'll say 'Well you got two thousand complaints about Victoria's Secret Show, and since they're all about Victoria's Secret we'll just count that as one complaint. So people have no idea of the number of complaints that are coming in." — FCC Commissioner Michael Copps
The pro-family watchdogs at Morality in Media (MIM) have just released an exclusive interview with Federal Communications Commissioner Michael Copps on issues surrounding indecent broadcasting.
The interview, conducted December 4, 2002, by MIM's Patrick McGrath, closely followed the airing of two controversial television shows, The Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, and the two-part TV mini-series Master Spy, the story of Robert Hanssen.
According to Copps, complaints to the commission about those shows caused the FCC's computer system to crash not once, but on two different occasions. He added that he arrives at work each day to hundreds, sometimes thousands of e-mails complaining about indecent broadcasts the night before.
Despite the flood of complaints, which Copps calls "widespread popular revulsion," the FCC continues to count them in a way that would land most business executives in jail.
"Sometimes they'll say, 'We don't consider an e-mail a complaint unless it's accompanied by a tape or a transcript,' or other times they'll say, 'Well you got two thousand complaints about the Victoria's Secret Show, and since they're all about Victoria's Secret we'll just count that as one complaint," Copps said. "So people have no idea of the number of complaints that are coming in."
This eye-opening interview into the inner workings of the FCC also proposes some long-needed solutions. Copps, who wants to revisit the indecency standard, says the law is not being enforced.
"So the problem I think is not in the statute that Congress enacted," Copps told MIM. "The problem, to my way of thinking, is much more in the rules we have designed to enforce that statute."
COPPS
I think the fines have to be serious enough to cause some harm. A five-, or a fifteen-, or a twenty-thousand dollar fine to a billion dollar company, or a tens-of -millions-of-dollars company, in revenue, is not really a sanction. Not even a slap on the wrist.
MIM: And you feel we need more than a slap on the wrist.
COPPS
But while complaints are starting to make an impact, Copps urges citizens to contact the other FCC commissioners and Chairman Michael Powell.
"I don't know that everybody here understands the widespread feeling that is out there in the country," Copps said. "I think that until that becomes something of a popular issue, and they realize the movement behind it, that it's going to get done."
The text of the interview can be found at on Morality in Media's Web site.
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