via Duncan:
99.8% of FCC complaints come from Brent Bozell's drones.The startling rise in indecency complaints -- from fewer than 350 in 2000 and 2001 to 14,000 in 2002 to 240,000 in 2003 -- was attributed Sunday to a single activist group, the Parents Television Council, part of L. Brent Bozell's conservative Media Research Center.
Mediaweek reported that an FCC analysis of the complaints dated Oct. 1, 2004 found that 99.9 percent of all indecency complaints had been brought by the PTC. The trade publication's report came only two days after FCC Chairman Michael Powell wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed article: "Advocacy groups do generate many complaints, as our critics note, but that's not unusual in today's Internet world...that fact does not minimize the merits of the groups' concerns."
But Jonathan Rintels, head of the Center for Creative Voices in Media, an artists' advocacy group, told Mediaweek that its report demonstrates how "a tiny minority with a very focused political agenda is trying to censor American television and radio." More
Bozell actually filed a lawsuit against a Buffy the Vampire episode and lost 5-0. Originally, the PTC had filed complaints specifically because of the episode "Smashed" from Season 6. Spike and Buffy's character's fight leads to sex. In the published release of the findings, they said
"There was no nudity and there was no evidence that the activity depicted was dwelled upon or was used to pander, titillate or shock the audience."
