To Bleep or Not To Bleep

Those of you who joined us last night for the taping of this week's episode of "The Strip" know that the comic magician The Amazing Johnathan made some shocking remarks in a defense of sorts of Michael Richards, the Seinfeld alum whose racial epithets on stage last November became a major scandal.

In the process, AJ used the "n" word five times and the "c" word twice. It is jarring audio, to say the least.

I am, this morning, seeking counsel from journalism ethicists who contemplate these matters often on whether to post the podcast version with or without bleeping out the offensive words. Miles is firmly advocating bleeps and I understand his view.

There are arguments on either side that are strong. My personal belief is that bleeping such words desensitizes people to their impact, does a disservice to the cause of showing just how ugly the world can be. I'm particularly perturbed when journalists dash-out, bleep or use the term "the n word" (as I did above, I know) when discussing the word itself. Not even in a semantical context can the word be spelled out, which I find very odd.

A podcast is not regulated by anybody nor is it, in our case, owned by a corporation. But I, too, am a media entity, an author and journalist for many important publications and I need to be cautious about what we end up doing. Any use of the actual word, whether I like it or not, is radioactive in this culture, and that radioactivity won't merely poison the person who actually said it.

I am interested in your thoughts, although this decision won't be made democratically. There is my own idealistic and, in my own mind, well-reasoned defense -- and then there is the reality of the real world. The real world, of course, is what pays our mortgage.