NO "SAVING PRIVATE RYAN" FOR DALLAS AUDIENCES

Not much blogging the past few days -- I'm in the middle of a film shoot, and Silmarill is preparing for a title fight (he's a martial arts champion). Didn't get to watch "Saving Private Ryan" last night since Dallas channel WFAA was one of the dozen or so ABC affiliates that refused to run it. The talk radio yahoos are livid, since they're certain it was a deliberate move on the part of our local "liberal media" to make the viewing audience angry with the FCC. I don't know what the motivation was, but I'd be extremely surprised if that view was on target. WFAA is owned by the Belo Corporation, which has a vested interest in continued loosening of the rules to allow increased media concentration/ownership. Also, Belo is not exactly a bastion of liberal fervor -- I know a couple of the board members very well, and they're dyed-in-the-wool conservative Republicans. Belo also owns the Dallas Morning News, which endorsed Bush for "re-election," and has long been known as one of the more conservative Texas dailies.

WFAA, for its part, insisted that it pre-empted the movie because the "F" word is used 40 times (can you believe someone counted?) and they didn't believe it was suitable for our market. The wingers confuse me by insisting that it's OK in this case, that soldiers talk that way, especially in war. I thought they were firmly set against situational morality. Not?

UPDATE: AmericaBlog tells us that the American Family Association is filing a complaint against ABC for airing the film.