Just Another Broadcast Day At Family Radio

[JustPastBuffalo]

After all the hoopla about Family Radio's Harold Camping preaching of the rapture and the end time on May 21, 2011, today I checked Family Radio's Buffalo FM, 89.9 WFBF... On the air and from what I heard, business as usual. But it makes me wonder, is a hoax such as Camping's preaching and promising an actionable offense before the FCC? Imagine the uproar if Clear Channel, Entercom or Cumulus participated in such a "promotion." Yes, CC has thousands of stations and Family Radio has about a hundred. Still, Harold Camping's advisory cost some members of the listening public their jobs, their life savings and in some cases their families, and maybe even their faith. http://www.christianpost.com/news/harold-camping-lost-the-gospel-christ-say-theologian-50348/ Is this the sign of responsible ownership and broadcasting in the public interest, convenience and necessity? Should Family Radio be stripped of its licenses?

 

[jas2525]

If the FCC were to take action against Family Radio's licenses, it would be under the "hoax rule," 73.1217, which reads thusly:

No licensee or permittee of any broadcast station shall broadcast false information concerning a crime or a catastrophe if:

(a) The licensee knows this information is false;

(b) It is forseeable that broadcast of the information will cause substantial public harm, and

(c) Broadcast of the information does in fact directly cause substantial public harm.

Any programming accompanied by a disclaimer will be presumed not to pose foreseeable harm if the disclaimer clearly characterizes the program as a fiction and is presented in a way that is reasonable under the circumstances.

Note: For purposes of this rule, "public harm" must begin immediately, and cause direct and actual damage to property or to the health or safety of the general public, or diversion of law enforcement or other public health and safety authorities from their duties. The public harm will be deemed foreseeable if the licensee could expect with a significant degree of certainty that public harm would occur. A "crime" is any act or omission that makes the offender subject to criminal punishment by law. A "catastrophe" is a disaster or imminent disaster involving violent or sudden event affecting the public.

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

There is this pesky little document known as the U. S. Constitution which insists that government,  the Federal government in particular, but by implication, state and local governments also, shall not establish the nature of acceptable religious belief.

Many of us might applaud some action to calm Mr. Camping down, but how are you going to feel when some Federal agency shows up at the religious establishment that your family has participated in for 3 or 4 generations and starts telling you what you may and may not say or write as part of your system of faith.

The shoe might not fit on that foot so comfortably.

[Scott Fybush]

This discussion is spanning multiple threads, but since GRC is here, too, let me pose this question to him: if my system of faith compels me to walk into a crowded theater and yell "fire," does the government have something valid to say about that?

What's at issue, in other words, isn't just Camping's "acceptable religious belief." If he wants to believe that Judgment Day is happening, he's free to do so. The issue is whether he has the absolute right to use a federally-licensed broadcast facility to spread that message. There are certain fairly minimal restrictions the FCC imposes on "free speech" when it takes place over a licensed broadcast facility, and I don't see any religious exemption to any of them: you can't use a broadcast facility to transmit indecency or profanity (give or take certain safe-harbor periods), you can't use a broadcast facility for personal attacks, and you can't disseminate hoaxes under the provisions of 73.1217.

[cee]

and you can't disseminate hoaxes under the provisions of 73.1217.

I haven't read 73.1217(and don't currently have the mental energy to do so), but assuming it doesn't counter what I'm about to say here, let me just say...you can't be promoting a hoax if you believe it to be a real prophecy.  Obviously Camping is a false prophet, but he may very well believe what he says. Unless you can prove it was a deliberate attempt to scam people, I don't think there's anything you can do about it.  It's sad when some retired transit worker in NYC loses his life savings(well over 100K) to put up Rapture billboards around town, but I don't think there's anything you can do about it.  Perhaps Camping's punishment is he will be discredited by many of his followers(though not all) and Family Radio will fall on hard financial times.

[jas2525]

Obviously Camping is a false prophet, but he may very well believe what he says. Unless you can prove it was a deliberate attempt to scam people, I don't think there's anything you can do about it. 

What if someone really "believes" that there's a fire in a crowded movie theatre?

To that you might say: "this person is clearly delusional and that's a different issue completely!"  Well, many would argue that this doomsday prophet is also delusional....as is, for that matter, ANYBODY collecting other people's money using TV and radio in the name of religion.

Now what?

[mediaboy]

Hey Harold.....start reading.....

 
Mark 13:32 "No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.
 
 
Amen

[SirRoxalot]

Anybody care to try to prove:

(a) The licensee knows this information is false;

in court? Good luck with that, unless he was stupid enough to say "look at these suckers" on tape somewhere.

It's much easier to follow the money. His little "media empire" would collapse fast if he was convicted of a felony.

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

This discussion is spanning multiple threads, but since GRC is here, too, let me pose this question to him: if my system of faith compels me to walk into a crowded theater and yell "fire," does the government have something valid to say about that?

What's at issue, in other words, isn't just Camping's "acceptable religious belief." If he wants to believe that Judgment Day is happening, he's free to do so. The issue is whether he has the absolute right to use a federally-licensed broadcast facility to spread that message. There are certain fairly minimal restrictions the FCC imposes on "free speech" when it takes place over a licensed broadcast facility, and I don't see any religious exemption to any of them: you can't use a broadcast facility to transmit indecency or profanity (give or take certain safe-harbor periods), you can't use a broadcast facility for personal attacks, and you can't disseminate hoaxes under the provisions of 73.1217.

There is among our people in this nation some concept that self-government is a simple process and as individuals we assign differing levels of importance to values we have decided are more important than someone else's values.  

Much of the furor over Camping has been coming from people who are not attached to any highly distinctive "brand" of religious thinking so they are not likely to stand by my side when I say:  "Slow down,  let's think our way through the conflicting American values that are smashing up against each other in this....  this.... this embarrassing display of "religion applied to everyday life."

Much of this furor over Camping has been coming from people who ARE attached to a brand of religious thinking that is quite bland and they know that it is unlikely that any "Federal Bureau of Religious Comliance" will never come knocking at their door with a cease and desist order.

Another bunch of furor over Camping has been coming for people who are attached to a brand of religious thinking that has it's own wack-a-doodle claims and prophecies and they are down on Camping, not because he is yelling FIRE in a crowded theatre, but because he is yelling FIRE in the WRONG THEATRE!!!

I have no problem if some prosecutor wants to turn Camping's life upside-down looking for a level of hoax that crosses the border into the land of fraud and illegal versions of hoax.  The last three posts in this thread have listed some very valid concepts that should be considered.

Religious broadcasting has included some "bad hombres" who have been fleecing the flock for decades with what I personally believe to be bad theological premises.  Such hoaxters seem to run a much higher risk of being arrested for deviant sexual behavior than for deviant pocket-book lightening behavior.

Why would the law look the other way since the beginning of broadcasting...  to suddenly pounce upon Camping as The Poster Child for deviant expression of religion.  When people gather for discussion in forums like this,  I am equally concerned about the hoaxes about how we view our basic freedoms as I am any broadcasters actions.

(There is a high probability that Camping is NOT a classic hustler.  I participate in some forums where the issues of how we choose sides and form teams in the world of faith are discussed.  I have butted heads with a lot of "Harold Camping kind of guys".  Ever see a garden where someone got sick mid-season and just let all the vegetables "go to seed"?  It is not a pretty site.  There is a phrase we use in conversation...  certain crotchety old men have let their theology go to seed.  That is not a pretty sight either!)

If we are going to activate the "Hoax Police"...  I want them to start with Talk Radio and the current political advocacy machinery in this country.  I am much more concerned with "trash talk" in the political world than I am the "trash talk" in religious broadcasting.  Trash talk cannot change the existence or nature of God.  Trash talk in the political world CAN CHANGE the existence and nature of our civilization.

[Scott Fybush]

Anybody care to try to prove:

(a) The licensee knows this information is false;

in court? Good luck with that, unless he was stupid enough to say "look at these suckers" on tape somewhere.

It's much easier to follow the money. His little "media empire" would collapse fast if he was convicted of a felony.

I am not a lawyer, but I think it's very provable. Remember that the licensee of the Family Radio stations is not Harold Camping, the individual. It's Family Stations, Inc., a nonprofit California corporation that has four voting board members, of which Camping is one.

Did Family Stations, Inc. enter into contractual obligations that extended past May 21, 2011? Did Family Stations, Inc. make international frequency reservations for its shortwave station for periods beginning after May 21, 2011? (That one, I know the answer to - it's "yes.") Did Family Stations, Inc. pay for insurance for its facilities or its employees for a period after May 21, 2011? These are all factors that could be used to determine whether Family Stations, Inc. as the licensee of the Family Radio stations may have known (or at least had reason to believe) that the information it was broadcasting was false, even as it was telling its listeners otherwise.

I think the harder piece of the case to make would be to prove that "public harm" resulted from the broadcasts, which were relatively low-key affairs. Much of the hype surrounding the "end of the world" came from the publicity that surrounded the broadcasts, and Family Stations, Inc. has at least some plausible deniability of responsibility there.