Michael Powell on Ronn Owens show: Audio and Transcript

Ronn Owens Show: 810 KGO-AM San Francisco, CA October 26, 2004

AUDIO: rope.kgoam810.com/stern/powellstern.asx

TRANSCRIPT:

Ronn Owens: “OK. Michael Powell is the head of the Federal Communications Commission. First of all, do I get a blanket OK for the, this entire hour, no matter what we say, you’re not going to yank the license of this radio station?”

Michael Powell: “You’re good to go. This is a license-free zone.”

Ronn Owens: “License-free, from now till ten o’clock?”

Michael Powell: “License waiver free zone.”

Ronn Owens: “No matter what I ask?”

Michael Powell: “No matter what.”

Ronn Owens: “OK.”

<clip>

Ronn Owens: “But there’s no way to enforce it <indecency>, Michael. How do you go, how do you go around enforcing something like that? I mean, obviously it’s going to be unequal enforcement.”

Michael Powell: “I think one of the things you said is important. We don’t go around enforcing it. We don’t want to be the Federal Bureau of Indecency. We don’t go out <inaudible>…” <laughs>

Ronn Owens: “Well I can say whatever I want till 10 o’clock….” <laughs>

Michael Powell: “That’s true.”

Ronn Owens: “…so it’s OK.”

Michael Powell: “Um, but what we do is we, you know, it’s an important point. We, we, we only respond to consumer complaints. Uh, you mentioned Janet Jackson. You know there were 540,000 complaints from the American people to the Federal Communication Commission on that. Now we can sort of indict the morays of the public on those concerns, but I think as a government agency charged with the responsibility of enforcing it, we can’t turn a deaf ear, uh, to that many American citizens who, ah, who complained.”

Ronn Owens: “The irony of that, though, is I mean if there was anything wrong with it, it was the violent ripping off of the bra. To me that was a hell of a lot more offensive than seeing her nipple.”

Michael Powell: “I think one of the important limits on our indecency rules is they’re very carefully curtailed. They’re only, uh, about very specific kinds of conduct and activity, it has to be sort of sexual or excretory in nature, uh, I think it has to be pandering and titillating in the sexual sense. Um, uh, these aren’t standards we created at the FCC, these are standards that the Supreme Court, uh, has held constitute, uh, enforceful indecency, umm, and I think it is useful and important that, uh, our authorities limit it in that regard.”

Ronn Owens: “OK. Let me give an example, and again I’ve got your absolute OK, a word can come out and you’re not gonna yank our license. DEAL?”

Michael Powell: <laughs> “uh huh, huh huh” “DEAL.”

Ronn Owens: “We made the deal.”

Michael Powell: “All right.”

Ronn Owens: “All right. OK. Just this Friday, talking about the war in Iraq. I had a gentleman who called up. The gentleman is talking about how his family had five generations of marines. His son is over in Iraq, or is being sent over in Iraq. He is a marine. Signed up. He said ‘I don’t understand what’s going on. Why does my son have to potentially lose his life over this BULLSHIT?’ And I had to stop and decide real fast, do I let that word out or not? This was a word spoken in passion, this is a guy who’s got 5 generations. I mean, what am I supposed to do? I’m in this Orwellian zone. I let it go through, cause I figured you’d be on and give me an OK. But honestly, what do you do with something like that? Do I have to analyze every word? I’m doing a talk show, its spontaneous. What do you do?”

Michael Powell: “Yeah, I, I, I, I think we can also exaggerate what the rules actually provide. I mean what the, what the federal statute says is e, uh, indecency or profanity. The problem is profanity is a relatively ambiguous term, um, and regrettably that means that means that there’s a whole host of <must be?> hundreds, thousands and millions of words, uh, that one could have a dispute about whether they fall in that category. But to be perfectly clear, I mean the FCC has, uh, in essence prosecuted the use of only a single word to date, uh and that word I think if you think anything is profane, I think you would have to admit that that would be the word that was. Um…”

Ronn Owens: “The F or the C?”

Michael Powell: “The, the F word.”

Ronn Owens: “OK.”

Michael Powell: “Uh, you know, not to, that’s not to suggest that there wouldn’t be other, uh, profane utterances that would lar, potentially violate the statute, but I think that we are much more conservative and careful in trying to balance the interests of speech and the situations you describe. We’ve dismissed as, five times as many complaints as we’ve acted on, um, for similar sets of concerns.”

Ronn Owens: “If you were doing the talk show on Friday, would you have let it through?”

Michael Powell: “Oh, I cant say. I mean I, you know, I, that’s the editorial judgment, uh, uh, uh of the broadcaster.” 

Ronn Owens: “Yeah. I mean here’s 5 generations, marine, kid going over there.”

Michael Powell: “Well, what I would say is I think that you, you have correctly postulated the most uncomfortable case, which is the coverage of live news, uh, in which individual citizens, you know, individual, uh, people being covered, uh, have an utterance and suddenly that’s coming over the air. And I do think that that’s the area that I would urge my commission and everyone else to be most careful about in its enforcement.”

Ronn Owens: “Now I had heard you do not want to take phone calls, I will try my best to talk you out of that before the end of the hour, cause there’s no reason you shouldn’t talk to people. But in its stead I’ve got emails…”

Michael Powell: “No, we’re happy to hear from the public…”

Ronn Owens: “You’re OK with phone calls?”

Michael Powell: “Well we can take one or two, just lets get this <inaudible>…”

Ronn Owens: “Why one or two? Talk to the people.”

Michael Powell: “We’re happy to talk to the people.”

Ronn Owens: “OK. 808-0810 is the number, Michael Powell will talk.”

<clip>

Ronn Owens: “This is from Kyle.”

Michael Powell: “Yeah.”

Kyle: “Um, why is Oprah allowed to talk about TOSSED SALADS and ANAL SEX without fear of fines or censorship?”

Michael Powell: “She’s not. Um, you know the, the, the, the, this is a complaint that people make. You can always find another example of something and suggest well when are you going to act on that, I mean we do have complaints about Oprah that we haven’t to my knowledge to date ruled on but we are endeavoring to <inaudible>”

Ronn Owens: “Come on, She’s she’s she’s like the President. No one’s going to dump on her.”

Michael Powell: “I wouldn’t say that.”

Ronn Owens: “Oh, come on.”

Michael Powell: “I think the duty and the obligation of the commission is to enforce fairly and without regard to the notoriety of the particular personality.”

Comments

[joel]

Ronn: I would like to see you do an entire 3 hour show on the history of the middle east. Start with Abraham coming from Ur to Caanan,jewish diasporas,the balfour declaration,1948 creation of israel,1967 war and so on. Try to be objective

[brigitte avigdor]

could you let me know what was the name of the medical agency dealing with tingling with the feet because of diabetes? I cannot remember it and I had no pen to write it this AM
thank you for your prompt answer
I always enjoy your ralks
Brigitte