There were several news reports this past week about a ruling by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld an earlier decision by Judge Derrick Watson, who held that the city properly denied a requested personalized license plate because, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported, it contained an “implied profanity.” The Star-Advertiser story went on to describe it as “an abbreviated swear word.”
In an act of self-censorship, the Star-Advertiser did not report the actual content of the license plate.
Neither did KHON-2 in their story about the 9th Circuit decision.
If you really wanted to know what it took to cross the legal line for a vanity plate, you had to rely on Civil Beat, which told the story in its headline: “You Can’t Say “FCK” On Your License Plate.”
But this wasn’t actually breaking any new ground, since CB had reported it earlier, and that story included a photo of the offending license plate.
Courthouse News Service, which describes itself as “a nationwide news service for lawyers and the news media,” also didn’t beat around the bush in its reporting on the case.
I’m sure there are limits to what “should” be reported, but an “implied profanity” deems to be a very low threshold for sanitizing the news.
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This is the same issue that the news has regarding other “touchy” subjects here in Hawaii. I cite one of the bigger ones – suicide. The self-censor, if not outrightly doesn’t report on these events. Another one, I am coming to find, is that of governmental board meetings and events surrounding them. Recently there was a slew of new leaders that ascended in these organizations, who may or may not have ulterior motives for their accession.
FCK, Fried Chicken Kentucky! I’m sure that if the plate read: FCK TRUMP it would be just fine. Much of the local news media are afraid of their own shadow. Let’s see if this case goes to the SCOTUS. First amendment, free speech issues seem to be winning there lately.
And yet his right to put whatever dumb shit anywhere else on his car remains intact. Indeed, he prominently displays a “Trump 2024 because fuck you” sign in his back window.
I believe Stormy Daniels already has the rights to “FCK TRUMP”. Much to the chagrin of Melania.
The first time I attempted to comment on the story in the Star-Advertiser I mentioned the clothing company French Connection United Kingdom by using its alternate name, often used on its signage, FCUK. The comment police immediately rejected it. When I resubmitted without the initials, it passed the paper’s sensitivity monitor. I took this experience as a prime example of the paper’s vacuity and wondered again why I pay for such mush. I’m not sure that the argument “something is better than nothing” retains much persuasiveness. The paper even downplayed the most outrageous part of the story. The aggrieved plate requestor was given his plate only after threatening the clerks in the Hawaii Kai Satellite City Hall even though there is a police substation right there. If Mr. Pritchett gets his FCK TRUMP license plate, then I want one denigrating Clarence Thomas.
I am glad to be a supporter of Civil Beat, they always seems to be among the best at reporting.
As is Ian Lind.
A side story- some time ago I wrote a comment to Star Advertiser which kept getting rejected.
Could not figure out why. I appealed to SA’s Diane Lee and here is her reply!
Note- the way I used the 2 words is 100% different than their AI saw the 2 words, as quoted below.
Aloha Edward,
Thanks for bringing this to our attention. I looked in our commenting system and found your comment, which was automatically rejected by the system due to the banned word “hard on.”
“It’s worth remembering that when Dawn Chang was Deputy Attorney General in the 1990’s she worked very hard on re-opening a long lost, privatized portion of the Ala Loa Coastal Trail at Onomea, Kahali’i north of Hilo. …”
Your comment is fine, so I just approved it.
Mahalo!
Too funny….
As a 30-plus-year journalist, I so agree! During the course of doing my daily news curation for my All Hawaii News blog, I read all the available local stories on this issue, and I was disheartened that any media outlet would write an entire story about a censored license plate without telling us readers what the disputed license plate actually said. Fortunately, Hawaii isn’t a total news desert yet, so readers had other avenues to get what the late great Paul Harvey used to call “the rest of the story.” Journalists are taught not to pussyfoot around controversial issues. (We’re also taught not to use euphemisms such as “passed away,” instead of the factual “died” in news obits, but that’s a whole different pet peeve of mine). Just the facts, please! Mahalo for bringing this to our readers’ attention, Ian.
His case to have a FCKBLM license plate is the tame stuff. From his vigils on the highway in Civil War soldier outfits to walking into stores armed with a machete “to scare the liberals”. Many in Hawaii Kai have a story about this colorful Trump supporter who calls himself “Crazy Eddie” “Rambo”, or “Archangel”. His profile lists his job as the “US Space Force Spe. Ops Training Commander Three Percenter as well as the Commander/Director of Admissions for the Archangel Military Institute. His website fckblm.org is titled Fight Communism and Knucklehead B*** Liberal Marxists. and warns against woke “Teachers” and “Professors”. Recently Crazy Eddie had a heroic car chase featured on Stolen Stuff Hawaii where he ignored the police dispatch and had a thrilling car chase which ended in him facing off and using his MMA fighter background to subdue the car thief. https://m.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=114423071456109&set=pcb.3331572837105372
Hi Ian. Honolulu Star-Advertiser’s Kokua Line column wrote about this license plate twice in August 2021 and printed FCK both times. Aug. 10, 2021, and Aug. 12, 2021.
Thanks for that! It makes the avoidance on the news side more puzzling.