bdication of responsibility in the face of what is admittedly an extremely complex problem û if not an unsolvable riddle: Namely, What is obscene? And who gets to decide the answer?
Decades before Miller, America seemed ripe for a national obscenity standard, if only because of what was then the newly-emerging mass medium of commercial radio and, in particular, commercial radio networks. And perhaps no other agency of government more embodied the effort to establish or even impose a national obscenity standard than the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). It was first established in 1927 as the Federal Radio Commission (FRC), and from the start, it walked a fine line within the limits of its legal authority. On the one hand, it was charged with monitoring the airwaves for obscenity, profanity and general ôindecencyö; on the other, it lacked the power of a true censor.
A report from the very beginning of it all, in 1927, describes an irate father, his attorney in tow, showing up at the FRCÆs New York City office, demanding that the supervisor in charge shut down a station because it had broadcast a song ôæunsuited for youthful ears.Æö The supervisor replied that he lacked the authority to do so and then ôrecommended the offended listener turn off the radio if he wanted to avoid injury to his sensibilityö (Rivera-Sanchez, 1994, 4).
Authorities, however, were not always so demurring, as later actions by the FRC and, after 1934, the FCC, would demonstrate. Indeed, as far back as 1930, the FRC refused to renew the license of station KVEP in Portland, Oregon, because it had ôallowed ævindictiveÆ attacks upon individual reputations.ö The attacks came in the aftermath of a heated political campaign, and phrases such as ôægrafting thiefÆö and ôæ à thieving, lying, plundering à corrupt crookÆö had flown over the airwaves (Rivera-Sanchez, 1994, 5). The offending individual, who had purchased the air tim...