Media Bureau Dismisses Petition Against 'Redskins' Station

on WWXX (FM) Buckland, Virginia, is an obscenity, said objections from John Banzhaf, Louis Grimaldi, Jay Nightwolf and Verona Iriarte. Though the objections were outside the deadline to be considered as petitions to deny, the bureau considered them on the merits as informal objections, the order said. “Redskins” isn’t a sexual or excretory term, and so doesn’t meet the definition of obscenity or profanity, the order said. Objectors also said the word was a racial epithet, but the FCC doesn’t regulate the use of such words, the order said. The FCC doesn’t consider such words profanity “given constitutional considerations,” the order said. The order also rejected arguments that the FCC should deny the renewal because broadcasting the word means Snyder doesn’t meet the character requirements to be a broadcaster. The FCC can’t “deny renewal of a broadcast license because particular words or programming broadcast by the licensee offended some viewers,” the order said. WWXX (FM)’s license has been renewed, the order said. FCC officials on the eighth floor weren’t notified of the decision and learned of it from news reports, one official told us. The petitioners are weighing different options, Banzhaf said. One option is to make an appeal or ask for reconsideration, “arguing that they’ve read our petition incorrectly,” he said. There also are additional station licenses coming up all the time so “we can now benefit from the staff’s position, and my colleagues and I can go back and see if we can come up with even more theories,” he said: “It’s going to take the commission to do it, and not the staff.” The bureau staff misinterpreted several claims, including one of the major claims that the unnecessary and repetitious use of the word causes harm, he said. “Somehow they twisted that to be only psychological harm, but it’s not.”