Radio and TV stations agonise over taste

Terror in America: Media

John Danver's "Leaving on a Jet Plane" might not seem a particularly threatening song, but America's biggest radio station owner has decided that it and about 150 other songs that speak of planes, explosions, falling, death or other related topics are best avoided at the moment.

On a rerun of the television sitcom That 70s Show on CBS ­ itself a hasty replacement for a scheduled network showing of the wholly inappropriate disaster movie Independence Day ­ a conversation between a bunch of teenagers about firecrackers was deemed to veer so close to poor taste that broadcast executives decided to bleep out the word "exploded".

In a world that no longer seems so entertaining, America's film makers, comedians, television schedulers, radio stations and book publishers are floundering. Some are abiding by what they see to be principles of good taste. Others are opting for self-censorship, sometimes to an absurd degree. And others ­ such as the promoters of God Bless America, a collection of essays on last week's calamity being rushed to publication by HarperCollins ­ are apparently looking for ways to capitalise on the public mood and make a fast buck.

On the front line of this crisis of media consciousness are the network news outlets, which have generally won high marks for their sensitive handling of events. Earlier this week, ABC announced it would not show any more images of the hijacked planes crashing into the World Trade Centre without special permission from the head of network news.

A spokeswoman said: "There is a sense that repeated use of these images is inappropriate. People will remember these images for ever whether we put them on or not. It's no longer a public service to continue to air them." The other networks have also reined in their use of the same footage.

This week has seen the return of America's most popular late-night comedy chat shows after a hiatus of several days, but the tone has been markedly different from usual. On his first outing, David Letterman of CBS had a deadly serious conversation with the network's news anchor, Dan Rather, who apologised for his lack of professionalism after he broke down in tears twice.

On NBC, Jay Leno skipped his introductory satirical take on the day's news and talked world geopolitics with the former Republican presidential candidate John McCain. "In a world where people fly airplanes into buildings for the sole purpose of killing innocent people, a job like this seems incredibly irrelevant," the usually ebullient Leno said.

On cable, Comedy Central's Daily Show remains off the air. Even reruns of the satirical news programme have proved problematic, since there has been scarcely an episode in the past six months that has not made fun of George Bush, now considered off-limits for jibes.

Some decisions on the radio playlist have been straightforward. The Gap Band's "You Dropped a Bomb on Me" is out, as is Soundgarden's "Blow Up the Outside World" and Primal Scream's "Bomb the Pentagon". Eyebrows have been raised, however, over an advisory list of about 150 "unsuitable" songs sent by America's largest radio network, Clear Channel Communications, to its 1,170 stations. They include Louis Armstrong's "What A Wonderful World", Simon and Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Water" and "Imagine" by John Lennon.