Once upon a time, John Wayne and a handsome actor named Ronald Reagan gave America an idea of the warrior’s life through G-rated films with nary a curse or expletive.
Such things don’t cut it anymore, at least according to “Frontline,” the weekly public affairs series from WGBH, a Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) affiliate in Boston.
In the name of editorial freedom, “Frontline” producers are asking other PBS affiliates across the country to air a salty version of a new 90-minute documentary on the daily challenges of the U.S. Army’s 8th Cavalry Regiment in Baghdad — swear words and all.
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PBS, however, has chosen to deliver an edited version of “A Company of Soldiers,” without profanity, to its affiliates. It’s scheduled to air at 9 p.m. tomorrow.
“The language of these soldiers is sprinkled with expletives, especially at their moments of greatest fear and stress. As we edited the program, we were judicious, but came to believe that some of that language was an integral part of our journalistic mission: to give viewers a realistic portrait of our soldiers at war,” wrote “Frontline” producers David Fanning, Michael Sullivan and Louis Wiley in a memo on Thursday.
The document was obtained by the Poynter Institute, a Florida-based media research group, and published on its Web site on Thursday.
“We feel strongly that the language of war should not be sanitized and that there is nothing indecent about its use in this context,” the producers noted.
In past years, “Frontline” producers have created two versions of programs that contained questionable language — one with swear words and the other edited for stations “for whom such language has always been a matter of local sensitivity.”
This time, a cautious PBS will “hard feed” only the sanitized version to its 349 affiliates. The original version, however, will be made available to affiliates via a secondary feed, but that delivery system is difficult for affiliates to use.
“Frontline” producers say the program should not have been edited before being sent out to other stations. They even assert that their attorneys have given the program a clean bill of health.
“The expletives in ’A Company of Soldiers’ do not violate the Federal Communications Commission’s indecency rule. They have concluded that the uses of the F-word and others in this film do not cross the FCC’s guidance against ’gratuitous’ use. They are not meant to ’titillate’ or ’pander’ to the audience,” the memo states.
But PBS is out to make its own point and has asked affiliates who show the unedited version to sign a waiver.
The organization also has formed a new Editorial Standards Review Committee, which includes former CNN anchor Bernard Shaw and Tom Rosenstiel of the District-based Project for Excellence in Journalism. The group met for the first time last Monday.
“The media environment has changed significantly since the last comprehensive review of our policies, most notably with the explosive growth of the Internet as a media outlet unto itself. Our goal in this process is to ensure that PBS’ editorial policies and practices remain up-to-date and effective,” said PBS chief Pat Mitchell.
However, she won’t be around long to oversee it. Miss Mitchell announced last week that she would leave PBS when her contract expires next year.
Meanwhile, the “Frontline” producers said they still hope that affiliates will get gutsy and air the unedited version.
“Frontline believes this is the moment for public television to stand firm and broadcast ’A Company of Soldiers’ intact, as it was intended. We believe what is at issue is not the particulars of this case, but the principle of editorial independence. Because overreaching by the FCC is at its heart a First Amendment issue, all programs are at risk, whether art, science, history, culture or public affairs.”
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