“Who’s Directing This Show? He Must Be An Idiot”

…asks Washington Post critic Tom Shales about last night’s cover-ups during the Emmy telecast on FoxTV. Shales was a guest on MSNBC talking about the larger issue of censorship. The backstory, in case you missed it: instead of using the word “sleeping,” Ray Romano used that other word that applies to people when they go to bed. Later, after her win for best actress, Sally Field used a God-related swear word to describe war. That too, was censored.

But instead of a bleep, the camera cut away to a wide shot. “There’s such a sense of paranoia and fear now,” says Shales. [The networks] are afraid about lip readers and about someone seeing what someone says…and it looks terrible on the air.”

Shales also used the Field expletive to go after the network that carried the telecast. “Fox, of course, has a well-earned reputation as a very conservative company run by Rupert Murdoch…and I wonder if she would have been censored if she hadn’t been talking about the war.”

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