News-Record.com

... because apparently the government has nothing more important to do:

WASHINGTON (Hollywood Reporter) -- In its continuing crackdown on on-air profanity, the FCC has requested numerous tapes from broadcasters that might include vulgar remarks from unruly spectators, coaches and athletes at live sporting events, industry sources said.

Tapes requested by the commission include live broadcasts of football games and NASCAR races where the participants or the crowds let loose with an expletive. While commission officials refused to talk about its requests, one broadcast company executive said the commission had asked for 30 tapes of live sports and news programs.

"It looks like they want to end live broadcast TV," said one executive, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity. "We already know that they aren't afraid to go after news."

NO SLIPS ALLOWED

While live programming always has been problematic for broadcasters, it has become even more difficult under tougher commission rules approved in 2004. The new rules found that virtually any use of certain expletives will be considered profane and indecent, even if it is a slip of the tongue. In a March decision, the FCC found that the CBS news program "The Early Show" violated its indecency rules because of a profane slip-up but did not issue a fine because the incident occurred before the new rules were instituted.

Live sports -- amateur, college and professional -- have long been a broadcast programming staple. Broadcasters have spent enormous amounts of money and energy to come up with ways to give audiences a better feel for the action. As broadcasters vie for viewers, technical advances that include such things as on-field microphones and in-car cameras have become as important as the announcers.

"I don't know how they are going to rule, but they asked us for tapes with a specific emphasis on crowd noise," said another TV executive, who also requested anonymity. "If some bozo in the crowd calls the ref an [expletive], the commission is asking for a copy of the tape."

As a former broadcaster, I'm pretty sure there is no problem so great in this case that it couldn't be solved with a 7-second delay. So why is the FCC making such a big deal out of this?

I don't know. And it's funny, but when I read the headline, I had the same thought as the quoted anonymous executive: It looks like they want to end live broadcast TV.

Perhaps we're being alarmist. Why would anyone want to do that?

This just in via e-mail from Downtown Greensboro Inc.:

Vanilla Ice at N Club, Friday June 9th: Members Appreciation Night at Much/NClub featuring Vanilla Ice ...

I guess this is a good thing ... if, by "appreciation," they mean "make them start projectile vomiting" ...

America's the land of opportunity, right? The rags-to-riches story is a characteristically, perhaps even uniquely, American success story, right?

Uh, not so much:

The likelihood that a child born into a poor family will make it into the top five percent is just one percent, according to "Understanding Mobility in America", a study by economist Tom Hertz from American University.

By contrast, a child born rich had a 22 percent chance of being rich as an adult, he said.

"In other words, the chances of getting rich are about 20 times higher if you are born rich than if you are born in a low-income family," he told an audience at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think-tank sponsoring the work.

He also found the United States had one of the lowest levels of inter-generational mobility in the wealthy world, on a par with Britain but way behind most of Europe.

That's particularly interesting in that Britain, at least in American eyes, always has been seen as far more class-bound, with far less social mobility, than America.

If the research is true, it not only destroys a cherished American myth ("myth" not in the sense of "lie" or "false story," but in the sense of "stories we tell ourselves about ourselves to create and/or maintain national identity"), it also raises some interesting questions for us as a country.

Has this always been the case, or is it a relatively recent development? If recent, what caused it? And whether or not it's a recent development, should we have more social mobility? Why? And if we think we should, what do we need to do to create and maintain it?

I'm no expert. I don't know the answers to any of these questions. (I could make some guesses off the top of my head, but I won't.)

Do you know the answers?

Ed wonders whether we've been devoting too much coverage to the lottery. I don't know. But what I do know is that just a few minutes ago, I overheard someone in the newsroom say, "No, I haven't had time to get lunch. I've been too busy playing the lottery."

The Federal Communications Commission wants to fine CBS and its affiliates $3.6 million for airing an episode of "Without a Trace" that supposedly depicted "teenage boys and girls participating in a sexual orgy." (I say "supposedly" only because I didn't see the episode.) That's several multiples of the $550,000 fine it levied against the same network and some of its stations for the Janet Jackson "wardrobe malfunction" incident during the Super Bowl two years ago.

That figure compares with a total of about $125,000 in fines levied by the government against the company that owns the West Virginia coal mine where 12 workers died in January.

I think that the kindest thing that can be said about this is that the government really needs to revisit the structure of its fines and civil penalties so that the most important violations carry the highest cost. By "most important," I mean the ones that address risks to human life. And it would be nice to think that that's what the government means by "most important," too.

According to this story, the fact that the NCAA is broadcasting basketball games online will cost corporate America $4 billion.

Corporate America can get over itself. Anyone with a lick of sense knows that these two days should be national holidays, anyway.

When you're on hold with Seattle city government, the phone plays music by Seattle-area musicians rather than Muzak.

How cool is that?

Poor self-esteem can be fatal. But don't take my word for it. Take a coroner's.

Using the power of an institution to insult people gratuitously over their religious beliefs is rude; for a journalistic institution to do so is unworthy and unethical. That said, refusal to do physical harm to someone strictly because of the ideas they express is a very wide, bright line separating civilized from uncivilized, and there can be no compromise on it.

For the record, any speakers at my funeral are not only welcome but are also encouraged to address the issues that were important to me in my earthly life. You need not even agree with me on those issues, as long as you fully and forthrightly acknowledge what my views were and the basis for those views. Being funny would be helpful but is not mandatory.

Also, there should be plenty of beer, barbecue and blues at the wake.

That is all.

I did not know this because I am old and no longer know anything of popular culture, but there is a movie coming out April 28 about the hijacked airliner that crashed in Pennsylvania on 9/11. One of those killed was flight attendant Sandy Bradshaw of Greensboro.

The movie is called "Flight 93," and you can find info about the movie at Flight93.net. You also can view trailers for the film here. I say you can; I can't, at the moment, because apparently my QuickTime plugin isn't new enough and I'm not allowed to upgrade plugins on my office machine on my own. (Don't get me started on that subject.)

Whether you should look at the trailers is another question altogether. A blogger whose work I frequently read, Edward at Obsidian Wings, said this about it:

I am actually quite amazed at my reaction to the trailer of the upcoming film about Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania on 9/11. I read this introduction on [blogger Andrew] Sullivan's site and thought, "Sure..., yeah, whatever":

When you see this trailer, you'll either start choking up, or think that Hollywood's exploitation of tragedy has finally gone too far. I choked up.

So I foolishly watched the trailer. There's not much to it actually; it's mostly just voiceovers. Yet suddenly, I want to crawl into a corner and cry ... just cry. I'm sorry, but it's much too soon.

Maybe our IT folks know what's best for me in ways that have nothing to do with computers. At any rate, click on that trailer link at your own emotional risk.

... on a couple of fronts.

First, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has reached a $10M settlement with industry giant Sony BMG and has the industry's biggest other players in his sights as he singlehandedly tries to stamp out "payola," the practice of bribing radio stations to play particular records. Good luck with that, but it's always good to see record moguls have to lawyer up. (During my time in the music/radio bidness, I had decent relations with most record-company promo reps, primarily because I always felt free to tell them when a record just plain sucked, but had nothing but contempt for the way they treated bands I knew.)

But the bigger danger to the industry might be ... wait for it ... Wal-Mart. Chris Anderson at The Long Tail, combining research of secondary sources with in-person visits, describes how record sales are constrained by America's largest retailer, which sells about one-fifth of all the recorded music Americans buy in a year. Some notable observations:

Simone Simon, star of the 1942 horror classic "Cat People," died yesterday in Paris at age 93. (Skip the 1982 remake; it's abominable.)

(Via Metafilter)

... but you know his voice almost as well as your own.

Happy 87th Birthday to NBC announcer Dominick George "Don" Pardo.

(His face is here.)

Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" is nominated for three Academy Awards, all relatively minor (cinematography, makeup, music).

Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" is nominated for zero. Zip, zilch, nada.

Looks like Hollywood wants a depoliticized Oscar show this year.

(I have seen neither film, in case that matters.)