Hey, s**t happens and I think we've become desensitized!

I got a call this week from a former co-worker residing in Nashville where he works as a religion reporter for the ABC affiliate. He asked me what I thought about saying the S-word on a piece he was planning to air as early as Sunday night at 10pm. I laughed at first and then he told me the context of how it would be used and why it was being used. It's a great story. Apparently he and the ND and GM at the station had a spirited debate about this and he's moving forward with the story. The word WILL be bleeped, especially in light of the fact that the FCC now says "the word s**t will be reason for a crackdown. Jamey tells me he also got a call from the Howard Stern radio show about the story and that he was interviewed for a segment that I assume will be aired Friday morning. If you listen to Stern and hear the interview, please tell me how it went.
I don't want to steal any of his thunder on this thought provoking story. I hope it is posted on the WKRN website after it airs. If you want to read about the discussion, go to his blog at www.faithandethics.com or that of his GM at www.wkrngm.com/ .
Along those lines, I will admit it. I have a dirty mouth. Perhaps it was so many years in the newsroom where people used to smoke and swear almost as often as they took a breath. Yah, the smoking went by the wayside, but generally speaking, the language around a newsroom is not something to be proud of. And it's not just a guy thing either. I know of a few females around the newsrooms who could make a sailor blush with their language. I once asked one woman if she ate with that mouth. It was pretty bad. Down on the river, we had one person in the newsroom no one ever wanted to be caught swearing around. Her name is Ms. Rachel. She's a kind and sweet hearted woman and it took a lot of effort on her part just to say "oh poop!" I admit I let a few things slip around her but generally it was like saying a dirty word in front of your mom. You just didn't do it.
But it's not just around newsrooms that the language is bad. You hear it on music videos, you hear it on adult programming, you hear it at ballgames. I once had to ask a college student sitting next to me at a football game to please watch his mouth. I thought he was going to give me some lip about it, but he apologized and said he would.
Maybe the language thing is just part of our culture. It seems we don't care about the other person we may be offending or maybe we think its impressive. It's not. I once got caught uttering a few dirty words in front of my grade school basketball coach, Mr. Sullivan. He told me a person who has to resort to swearing in conversation doesn't have much of a vocabulary.
You know, he's right.