Within those needs is the right to not be driven away from radio altogether due to violations of norms listeners have for themselves and their children. Why? In times of emergency, bad weather, natural disaster - especially in smaller communities - radio may be the only source of critical information, in particular for those outside their homes, and the public good is not served if a substantial portion of the population refuse to listen to radio due to its offensiveness. Hence the justification for SOME kind of normative content rules.

The key to making this work for everyone is to give the public and broadcasters unambiguous rules about what can be done and said when on radio and broadcast television - the modes where the spectrum is limited and controlled in the public interest by the government - so that the public can watch and listen with the confidence that their standards (in the broadest community sense) will not be violated.

This sense of violation is behind the public outrage over the Janet Jackson affair and Bubba the Love Sponge's vulgar inanity, and why free speech regarding the public airwaves should not be absolute, and who other than the public, in the form of the FCC, to establish and enforce these rules?

The other source of current outrage is that the public feels appropriate rules ARE in place, but that the FCC has been very hesitant to enforce them (last year "240,000 complaints filed with the FCC about 375 programs, only three citations that might result in fines were issued") and that the penalties for violations aren't sufficiently severe to concern broadcasters ("Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., chairman of the House telecommunications subcommittee, has introduced a bill proposing that FCC fines be raised from $27,500 to $275,000 per incident.

Other possibilities informally discussed at the hearings:
1. Institute a "three strikes" rule: Three violations and a station would be off the air.
2. Spread fines around beyond the current local affiliate stations - add fines for the artists, for example, or for the networks, and tie the amount of the penalties directly into ad revenue.")

Lastly, Jesse's final statement, that "witless shock jocks" are a "product of the culture, not a cause of it" - I don't entirely agree. The direction of culture is not one-way in either direction: the media both reflects and helps create the culture, and enforcing parameters on the media - in particular the broadcast media - absolutely has an affect on the culture by influencing what is considered permissible in public discourse. Even if that influence is only subconscious it is nonetheless very real.