Profanity on ESPN News

In live instances, I'd agree not to fine the network (nor the person, who can say whatever he or she wants) because they couldn't control the information being broadcasted and had no reasonable indication to expect it.

But the re-airing on SportsCenter is the network's call and they're responsible if it violates any rules.

 

I've got no problem with that line of thinking.

 

That is the major problem I have with the religious groups who go after networks for things like that. Immediately after the Super Bowl where Janet Jackson went nipple el fresco, of course, make CBS lose their license, fine them, shut them down. On Fox, a NASCAR driver said bullshit on an in-car radio. Of course, make Fox lose their license, fine them, shut them down, they are polluting the minds of millions of innocent children who were exposed to that filth.
Uh.....not one mention of Janet Jackson or the driver. Why not go to the source instead?

 

First Amendment applies to the press, not the airwaves. That's the difference. There probably shouldn't BE a difference, but maybe we should be glad there is.

I would also think ESPN doesn't really pay much attention to the safe-harbor period, because their reach is such that they're almost always on somewhere where they're outside the safe-harbor period. (Alaska/Hawaii, for example.)