Ethics Newsline®

“The Commission’s determination that CBS’s broadcast of a nine-sixteenths of one second glimpse of a bare female breast was actionably indecent evidenced the agency’s departure from its prior policy.”

– An excerpt from Monday’s ruling by a federal appeals court overturning a $550,000 indecency fine against CBS Corp. over Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction” during the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show. The three-judge panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) “acted arbitrarily and capriciously” when fining CBS since the punishment deviated from the agency’s longstanding practice of issuing fines only when the content was so “pervasive as to amount to ’shock treatment’ for the audience,” reports the Associated Press. “Like any agency, the FCC may change its policies without judicial second-guessing. But it cannot change a well-established course of action without supplying notice of and a reasoned explanation for its policy departure,” the court ruled.

Source: AP, July 21.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, June 12, 2006 — Related Newsline story, Apr. 25, 2005 — Related Newsline story, Feb. 28, 2005 — Related Newsline Commentary, June 28, 2004.