Herald Column: Let Market Decide What Speech is Acceptable

My latest Calgary Herald column:

 

As someone whose livelihood is directly connected to broadcast media, it is gratifying to see such a sudden and healthy interest in this area.
However, as someone whose livelihood is based on expressing opinions, it is alarming to see such an unhealthy interest in controlling what is said on Canadian airwaves.
From songs to news to raucous debate, there's no shortage of suggestions as to how to regulate or ban speech. Of course, if you're not pleased with what you're watching, or listening to, or reading, then you are certainly entitled to watch, listen to, or read something else.
Newspapers are free to print all sorts of nasty words. Yet despite a lack of government or regulatory oversight, it's quite rare to see such language.
The lyrics of a song from more than a quarter of a century ago have sparked a debate over naughty words on the radio.
The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC) ruled last week that a Newfoundland radio station was in violation for playing the Dire Straits' song "Money for Nothing" which thrice contains the word "faggot."
Strangely, the CBSC has previously ruled on two occasions that the word "fag" is acceptable for broadcast. We're now told that "faggot" is somehow different, but it seems a rather trivial distinction.
In fact, this whole exercise seems quite trivial.
The word "faggot" has been repeated countless times in the past week, yet we're supposed to believe that someone listening to a rock station at night needs to be protected from hearing this same word.
Granted, when it comes to radio, some sort of entity is needed to oversee frequency distribution and signal strength -- there are only so many spots on the dial, after all.
And the CBSC approach is preferable to the heavy fines of the American FCC. All the CBSC requires is that its decisions be read on the air.
However, we shouldn't need the speech police, any more than a newspaper or website does; this antiquated notion of "public airwaves" leads to all sorts of double standards.
For example, the Toronto Star was sounding the alarm over the weekend about a proposed regulatory change by the CRTC which would ease the ban on reporting false or misleading news.
It might seem counterintuitive to make it easier to broadcast something false, but the CRTC seems to have rightly concluded that its current rules are too vague.
But again, we encounter this notion that broadcast media need to be held to a different set of standards.
Canada once had a law on the books regarding false news. Section 181 of the Criminal Code prohibited "wilfully publishing" a false statement or news that could cause "injury or mischief to a public interest."
In 1992, however, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that Section 181 was an unconstitutional infringement of free speech rights.
So we need such rules for TV and radio stations, but not for newspapers?
The same Toronto Star article somehow manages to tie this regulatory change to the recent mass shooting in Tucson, Ariz., referring to the debate over the "venomous, often grossly distorted, political discourse on the U.S. airwaves."
What is the point of such a reference?
How ironic that as the Toronto Star laments the "grossly distorted" rhetoric in the U.S., it seems to be vaguely implying that the CRTC's decision might somehow lead to bloodshed.
Of course, there's no evidence whatsoever that the man who attempted to murder congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was influenced by any sort of debate or commentary on radio or television.
Yet we've been subjected to a torrent of commentary on the need to "rein in" such rhetoric. However irresponsible some commentators might be, it strikes me as just as irresponsible to link someone to an horrific crime without a shred of evidence.
If there's a debate to be had over inflammatory rhetoric, where was that debate before the shootings?
Given that inflammatory, irresponsible, or offensive is clearly in the eye of the beholder, why not let the market make such a determination?
Let's dispense with the pointless double standards and the paternalistic urge to regulate speech.