Fearful of upsetting “innocent viewers,” WNPT-Channel 8 has decided not to air a disturbing Frontline documentary on the pornography industry during prime time. Instead, the public television station will air an edited version of the program at midnight Thursday.
“Just a handful are not showing it in prime time,” says Chris Kelly, a senior publicist for the acclaimed Frontline documentary series, who concedes that the show is challenging. “We knew this would be a sensitive issue just based on the subject matter.”
The program, titled “American Porn,” provides a tough, behind-the-scenes look at the nation’s sleazy industry while exposing how it’s aided and abetted by some of the nation’s most profitable corporations—from General Motors to the Hilton Hotel Corp. Given the subject matter, the program shows fairly racy footage, although the camera rarely lingers gratuitously on any particular image. But because it is intended to convey the nastiness of the industry, “American Porn” features, for example, the making of a porn video in which a woman screams while portraying a victim being gang-raped. And in yet another video about a pornography boot camp, a drill sergeant asks a female recruit: “Have you ever been fucked up the ass?”
Steven Bass, the president and CEO of WNPT, made the decision not to run the program at its regularly scheduled 8 p.m. time slot. And he says the station will block certain offending images and words. “It’s a very important topic, but one that is deeply disturbing to some people,” Bass says. “I just don’t think this is what you want on the television at 8 at night when an innocent viewer might be tuning in.”
But other Tennessee public television stations decided to run the documentary during prime time. “It wasn’t a tough call,” says Victor Hogstrom, president and CEO of Chattanooga’s WTCI, which will air the unedited show at 9 p.m. Eastern Time. “My position is that public television viewers are educated and responsible, and if this kind of thing is happening why shouldn’t we expose this to our viewers?”
Hogstrom says his decision would be no different if the program were scheduled to run an hour earlier, as Nashville’s time zone would have dictated. “We’re not in the business of censoring if it’s a factual program.”
At least it got readers
On the topic of censoring, the rather stodgy Vanderbilt University administration probably wishes that the school’s new left-leaning newspaper, Orbis, had muzzled one its columnists recently.
“I am a cocksucker,” began Anna Cielinski, whose pleasing photograph runs with the column. “Exactly what is so bad about being a cocksucker?”
Cielinski writes that the word “cocksucker” is used to denigrate people who are “unyielding, selfish and disagreeable”—words that incidentally apply to many journalists. But taken literally, she says the word is not such a bad thing. “A huge majority of women will be cocksuckers at some time in their lives,” she writes.
She says she was trying to make a feminist statement. “The column was in line with my sex-positive views,” she says. “A lot of feminists would not take that idea on, which is fine, but I think that young feminists are tending to work to define a healthy sexuality.”
Cielinski’s editor, Michael O’Malley, says that while he initially felt the column was inappropriate, the way it was written won him over. “We’re examining a word that is derogatory but should be beautiful and meaningful.”
Of course, Cielinski’s ruminations didn’t sit well with Michael Schoenfeld, Vanderbilt’s vice chancellor for public affairs. “I’m not afraid to say that it was in poor taste,” he says.
Imagine Schoenfeld’s reaction then when he picked up a copy of The Slant, Vanderbilt’s parody newspaper. In it, one writer riffing on the Cielinski episode examines why the word “motherfucker” has gotten such a bad rap.
Bad form
While The Tennessean’s Brad Schmitt applauded WKRN-Channel 2’s Karen Brady for her goofy acceptance speech at Saturday’s regional Emmy Awards, some of her colleagues weren’t as amused.
Brady, who admitted to having some wine before her speech, appeared confused, repeated herself and paused awkwardly at the podium. She giggled and continued to ramble even after several musical cues to leave the stage. “Everybody is laughing, and I don’t know why,” she said at the time.
“Some of us were pretty embarrassed,” says one Channel 2 staffer, adding that Brady is regarded as a professional in the newsroom.
What made Brady’s speech particularly inappropriate was that she won the award for a serious and heartbreaking story about a woman who had been tortured by her adopted parents for nearly 20 years—and later tried to kill herself by drinking antifreeze. “I was really excited,” Brady says, adding that she probably would have given the same speech wine or no wine. “It was my first time to ever be nominated, and I was overwhelmed.”
