Bleeping bleepity bleep

I’m spending some time working at our local public radio station this summer. In my quest to find out a little bit about online radio audiences I was looking at Current, the news source for public broadcasting and this was the lead story:

Read his lips? Not if that could get public TV fined, PBS decides

Cursing mouths must now be obscured in programs airing before 10 p.m. Pictured: a military officer whose words were bleeped and mouth pixilated in recent Frontline documentary on the Iraqi insurgency.

The article suggests this is more about FCC actions than bizarreness on PBS’ part. But really, this seems a little over the top.  I think any kids who are watching a Frontline documentary should be able to handle a few mouthed explatives.  Where’s my iMovie? I can think of a few mouths that I’d like to pixelate.

Now consider that not everyone has the resources to save every bit of raw footage or the original proprietary formats that a program is edited in.  Or that those formats will probably break a few versions down the road.   Even if the final program with bleeps and pixelation makes it, this will be an interesting indicator of current culture worthy of study by some future media studies student.