Editorial: A lost cause on the air

The Supreme Court ruled last week in a case about decency on broadcast TV. The court’s concern seems quaint because television is awash in vulgarities and indecencies of all kinds, and the government can’t do anything about it because most of it is on cable and does not originate over the air.

In the case before the court, the Fox network challenged an FCC regulation that even a fleeting four-letter word starting with f or s in a live broadcast should be considered indecent, banned and subject to fines. The court ruled 5-4 that the FCC rule was not arbitrary, but it said the entire regulation of broadcast content might violate the free-speech guarantee of the First Amendment.

When government gets into the regulation of particular words because they refer to sexual or excretory functions, it is on slippery ice. The Constitution does not contemplate federal control over America’s vocabulary.

In the last generation or two, broadcast standards have virtually disappeared. A show such as “Two and a Half Men,” a hit seen by millions, is almost entirely built on sex and bodily functions. Yet the FCC has not proposed to fine the network that carries the program.

Instead, the agency fined a network for Janet Jackson’s breast-baring incident during halftime of the 2004 Superbowl. That episode almost nobody saw because it lasted less than a second. Even if you happened to see it, there was nothing prurient or indecent about it.

To summarize: The FCC now fines broadcasters for harmless transgressions such as failing to cut away fast enough from a dimly viewed entertainer’s breast or an expletive from a vulgar TV personality. It completely ignores the sex-laden content of regular programs. And it has no jurisdiction over cable programs where just about anything goes, let alone the Internet, which most of the population now uses for communication and entertainment.

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Under the circumstances the FCC ought to give it up. Quit trying to enforce regulations that make no sense and don’t protect the public anyway.

In an age when you can’t watch TV for an hour without seeing ads for erectile dysfunction and what to do in four-hour emergencies, even the FCC must realize its efforts are doomed to fail.