Free Speech
The prime time TV news programs broke a sound barrier in the last week, using words and phrases of a sexual nature that have in the past been confined to racier venues.
Under other circumstances references to oral sex or "another head" may well have been considered obscene. This time, the media were safely within the realm of the news. Therefore, whatever was described was legally acceptable as having "redeeming social value."
The Supreme Court has ruled that community standards apply in distinguishing what is permissible in the media from what is obscene. But community standards are hard to pin down and often in flux. Explicit language once shocking to the general populace is no longer so.
The word "obscene" refers to "language regarded as taboo in polite usage" as well as to anything "designed to incite to lust or depravity," according to Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. Dictionary definitions do not, however, tell us exactly what polite usage is or how and when to know whether printed or broadcast material is "designed to incite lust."
In street talk, four-letter words are so commonplace they have lost their meaning and for a large portion of Americans they are used more for emphasis than to arouse prurient interest.
That being the case, it seemed quite out of step for The New York Times to have deleted certain words in reporting about the taped conversations between Linda Tripp and Monica Lewinsky, substituting "(expletive)" or ellipses instead.
New York Times editors may think the standards for obscenity and good taste are more conservative among its community of readers, even given the fact that children are a lot more likely to be watching the network news than reading The Times. Certainly, TV is more likely to pander to prurience - the daytime talk shows speak for themselves - and to reduce even legitimate news to a few sexy sound bites and images.
On the other hand, many of us have come to rely on The Times for thorough and in-depth coverage, which in this case would include the obscenities that arise in an undeniably obscene situation.
The investigation in Washington and the media's treatment of it have pushed popular notions of obscenity to a different level. Even when the debacle fades from view (and the sooner the better) it is likely that community standards of what constitutes obscenity and the general definition of free and protected speech will never be the same.