"Fuck"
(aka "the f-word")
(Read
and React- leave your comment and see others' in the reaction
section at the bottom of this page)
Weekend Talk
Show Did Not Promote Hatred But Should Not Have Contained
F-Word, Says Canadian Broadcast Standards Council
Ottawa, February 6, 2003 - The Canadian Broadcast Standards
Council (CBSC) today released its decision concerning an episode
of Warren on the Weekend, an open-line radio program broadcast
by CKNW-AM, Vancouver. The British Columbia Regional Panel
reviewed a complaint about a comment made by a caller to a
talk show dealing with celibacy in the Catholic priesthood.
After evaluating the tape of the episode, the Panel determined
that the program was not abusively discriminatory but that
the station should not have permitted the f-word to be uttered
during the morning broadcast.
Warren on the Weekend is hosted by Peter Warren. His guests
on the March 24, 2002 program were the General Secretary of
the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops and the spokesperson
for Corpus Canada, an organization supporting the right of
Catholic priests to marry or live with partners (whether on
a heterosexual or homosexual basis). Both guests were provided
equal time to state their positions on celibacy for priests
and to answer callers' questions. The Panel found that the
discussion was "balanced, reasonably friendly and remarkably
free from hostility and even sharp argumentation." Although
Warren made it clear that the debate would not be turned into
"an anti-Catholic tirade", one caller managed to
get on air and told the religious representatives to "f***
off." A listener wrote to the CBSC complaining that this
statement promoted hatred of Catholics and that the broadcaster
should have edited out the coarse language. CKNW-AM explained
that its new delay technology had failed on that particular
day.
The BC Regional Panel examined the complaint under the Canadian
Association of Broadcasters' (CAB) Code of Ethics. It concluded
that the program as a whole was not abusively discriminatory
towards Catholics; the one nasty call was "an isolated
phenomenon and not in the least reflective of the tone of
the program, which did not in any other sense promote bad
feeling [...] against the Roman Catholic community."
The Panel did, however, conclude that the broadcaster should
have been more successful in editing out the f-word at that
time of day, or, at the very least, if the equipment had malfunctioned,
the program host should have commented on the inappropriateness
of the word. CKNW-AM was found in breach of the Code on this
account.
Canada's private broadcasters have themselves created industry
standards in the form of Codes on ethics, gender portrayal
and television violence by which they expect the members of
their profession will abide. In 1990, they also created the
CBSC, which is the self-regulatory body with the responsibility
of administering those professional broadcast Codes, as well
as the Code dealing with journalistic practices first created
by the Radio Television News Directors Association of Canada
(RTNDA) in 1970. More than 530 radio and television stations
and specialty services from across Canada are members of the
Council.
The above is a media release of the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC) concerning
a decision of the BC Regional Panel of the CBSC released today. The full text of the
decision can be found on the CBSC's website by clicking on the following direct link:
<http://www.cbsc.ca/english/decision/030206.htm>.