Editorial: Asking for common decency

In today's Deseret News, reporter Hal Boyd gives readers an unvarnished account of the sexual taboos that have toppled, one by one, on broadcast television.

Because of our longstanding editorial concern with the importance of values in the media, the Deseret News will continue to decry entertainment that portrays violence and immorality as acceptable. Our primary concern is whether culture is helping families in what should be a common effort to raise ethically responsible children.

As a media organization, we understand the potential clash between values and freedoms. Democracy provides individuals the framework to work out their own plans and purposes within the rule of law. It could therefore be seen as contrary to freedom for law to prescribe how things are done culturally.

Nothing, however, needs to be legislated in order for citizens to ask for and expect common decency. Especially in common physical and conceptual spaces, it seems fitting and proper that, regardless of privately-held beliefs and tastes, one should expect to find a measure of behavior and deportment that enhances participation.

And such an ethic of enhanced participation actually demands some measure of ethical behavior and decorum — not the lowest common denominator. It is entirely appropriate for conventional morality (as distinct from the legal rights) within a participatory public square to exclude as beyond the pale, for example, expressions that directly denigrate individuals because of religion, race, ethnicity or gender.

So it is with the pervasive depiction of sexuality in broadcast television. Regardless of the question of rights, if broadcasters and advertisers were genuinely concerned with common decency, they would understand that it is not a simple question of turning off objectionable material. Rather, it is about transforming common space — publicly-auctioned broadcast spectrum — into increasingly inhospitable territory for families, especially parents.

Broadcasters and advertisers who try to profit from sexually suggestive material need to understand that parents don't appreciate being condescendingly dismissed as prudish people who are "offended by sex." Offended by sex? It is parents who, by definition, actually understand sex. They know that in addition to providing intense physical pleasure, sexual intimacy also brings into the life of a couple the immense responsibility to care for children. They know that sexual relations create unparalleled physical and emotional vulnerability that, when shared with commitment and trust, can bond husband and wife together — but if dissipated, can leave irreparable harm.

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This presentation will focus on speech recognition "then and now." Drawing on experience with multiple companies and speech recognition vendors and many different types of implementations, the speaker will compare what we thought about optimization and implementation in the early days of speech recognition to what we know now. Read Full Session Description

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