Even then, it's an argument, because there's government censorship and there's private censorship.

Not only that, but there are laws that require censorship, usually concerning materials of an explicitly sexual nature or that violate local profanity statutes. That's a whole other matter, even if the censorship is political, because that concerns complying with laws passed by legislatures. That's government censorship, and needs a court challenge, a legislative initiative, or both, to fight.

This whole Dixie Chicks thing isn't really about censorship. It's about public speech and its consequences, particularly for people whose livelihoods depend upon access to public speech conduits.

If the Dixie Chicks had released a song with lyrics that a radio station's management objected to for some reason not required by statute (see the 2 Live Crew dust-up of some years before), and altered the song or refused to play it while playing other things of theirs, that's private censorship of the Dixie Chicks. Altering the content of a particular song may be actionable under copyright, though doing a satire is probably not. Not playing a particular song, like not running a particular run of a comic strip a newspaper subscribes to, can be odious, but isn't illegal.

If a radio station's management decides not to play any Dixie Chicks music, that's a marketing decision with possible overtones of private censorship which may or may not come back to bite them in the butt. It could be that somebody in charge just doesn't like the Dixie Chicks. Last I heard, taste differences aren't strictly speaking censorship material. Enforcing personal taste on a facility used by the public if the public wants a particular commodity isn't especially good customer service, but there you go. The market will determine the fate of company strategy, provided the market isn't controlled by a monopoly. (Government can be a monopoly too.)

If a radio station's management decides not to play any Dixie Chicks music based on overt or concealed pressure by a government agency (e.g., threatening arrest or suspension of license, respectively), that's government censorship. If the threats are not the result of statutory law enforcement, government censorship is actionable. Sometimes even if a statute is involved, the statute itself can be challenged in court.

If a radio station's management fires a DJ for breaking programming policy by playing from the "banned" list, that's upholding company policy.

If a radio station's management forbids a DJ from disclosing that the station will not play the Dixie Chicks because of management policy, and threatens to fire the DJ as a consequence of disclosure, that's private censorship of the DJ, and comes perilously close to coercion. It may be actionable.

If, as in the public radio case discussed here a while ago (the DJ refused to play NPR news and used the time to talk instead), the DJ is fired for failing willfully to perform a duty which is part of his job description, that's upholding company policy and fulfilling a contract with another agency, whose product was sold to the station for distribution.

If the public radio station had forbidden the DJ to speak about it, that would have been an unsuccessful attempt at private censorship, as a company has very little control over a fired employee unless he has signed a voluntary agreement to remain silent.

It really is complicated.

We all censor. It's using editing to control not for quality or brevity but content, and we all do it.

Sometimes it's appropriate. Sometimes it's nobody else's business. Sometimes it's legal but repulsive. Sometimes it's illegal but understandable. And sometimes its illegal and repulsive. Those last ones are the ones we need to prosecute.

The Dixie Chicks' best defense against private censorship is to produce very very good music and to tour aggressively until the market demands that they receive as much exposure as they did before they politicized their art.

Regards--
Mary Anne