>The author of the review, Sandra Tsing Loh, was kicked off a local
>public radio station (KCRW) for using the f-word on the air
>(repeatedly). She used it as a joke and the engineer was supposed to
>bleep it out. But _she_ got fired. (The station manager, who once was
>part of the Pacifica family, is a bit anal.)
The station manager may be anal, but the FCC is coming down like a ton of bricks on "profanity." Six-figure fines are possible, and they're even talking about fining the person who utters the words as well as the station.
A blogger on the WFMU site keeps up with this <http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2006/04/the_indecency_s.html>. According to a legal memo posted there, "it would appear that the use of the term 'the F-word' as a substitute for 'fuck' - a substitution which the Commission itself utilizes, presumably to reduce the number of really, really bad words it has to print - would be objectionable because, even though the word 'fuck' is not spoken, the reader (or listener), coming across the term 'the F-word', immediately recognizes the unspoken/unwritten term, i.e., 'fuck.'" So, by this logic, even bleeping out a "profanity" - and according to the FCC, the two "presumptively profane" words in the English language are "fuck" and "shit," words that are impermissible regardless of context - may not be enough. But you never know. They could fine your ass (that use of "ass" may or may not be permissible on air, as the memo says) anyway.
Doug