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FCC’s Proposal To Regulate Violent Content Violates the First Amendment
Legal Precedents Are Against Censorship
NEW YORK, NY, April 26, 2007 … Media Coalition, a trade association representing producers and retailers of First Amendment-protected material, today criticized the Federal Communication Commission’s (FCC) unprecedented effort to expand government control over depictions of violence on television, an area it has never before been authorized to regulate. The courts have never permitted regulation of violent content for adults or minors. “The FCC is broadcasting the wrong signal,” said David Horowitz, Executive Director of Media Coalition. “The courts have consistently found restricting violent content is contrary to the First Amendment. Contrary to what the FCC has implied in this report, the Supreme Court has made clear that speech is presumed to be protected by the First Amendment unless it falls into one of a few very narrow categories: defamation, incitement, obscenity, and pornography produced with children. Media with violent themes or depictions, on TV or otherwise, does not fall into any of these categories.” Michael A. Bamberger, Media Coalition’s General Counsel, notes that recent legal decisions have consistently found that material that depicts or describes violence is fully protected by the First Amendment. In 2003, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ruled in IDSA v. St. Louis County that depictions of violence cannot legally be considered obscene for either minors or adults. In 2001, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals found an Indianapolis law that would have restricted arcade video games with “graphic violence” to be unconstitutional (AAMA et al. v. Kendrick et al). In addition to these cases, in just the past four years courts have enjoined laws banning dissemination of material with violent content in California, Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Oklahoma, and Washington. “While courts have allowed greater regulation of television than other media in terms of sexually explicit content, there is no precedent for extending this greater regulation for television to material with depictions of violence,” he said. In its report, the FCC acknowledges concerns expressed by Media Coalition regarding existing research on media effects. Since the response to the FCC’s Notice of Inquiry, U.S. District Court Judge Matthew Kennelly heard a challenge to an Illinois law banning video games with violent content. He conducted a two-day hearing on social science and brain science research linking violent content to actual violence. Judge Kennelly found the science unpersuasive and the law unconstitutional. Media Coalition also believes that a sweeping government prohibition on all violent content fails to consider that different parents will make different judgments about what images are appropriate for their children. The evening news is filled with images of real violence in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some of our most celebrated cinema is filled with graphic depictions of violence, such as the films Schindler’s List or Saving Private Ryan. A broadcast of a staged opera or a performance of Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus would be filled with depictions or descriptions of violence some would consider horrific. Television shows about hunting may be acceptable to some parents and unacceptable to others. “We acknowledge parents’ concerns about what their kids watch but it’s best to preserve the right of adults to choose what they want to see and leave the choice of what children are permitted to see up to parents, not the government,” Horowitz said.
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Media Coalition is a trade association of publishers, booksellers, and librarians, recording, motion picture and video games producers, recording, video, and video game retailers, and motion picture exhibitors in the United States defending the rights granted by the First Amendment.
For further information, contact:
David Horowitz Media Coalition (212) 587-4025 x11; Horowitz[at]MediaCoalition[dot]org
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