FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:             NEWS MEDIA CONTACT:
September 20, 2001                      Susanna Zwerling at (202) 418-2000



         STATEMENT OF COMMISSIONER MICHAEL J. COPPS ON 
      COMPLAINTS RECEIVED REGARDING HOWARD STERN BROADCAST 
           ON NATIONAL DAY OF PRAYER AND REMEMBERANCE


I am saddened and dismayed at remarks reportedly made on Howard Stern's nationally syndicated
radio program last week during our National Day of Prayer and Remembrance.  Our country has been
through one of the most difficult and trying weeks in its long and sometimes painful history.  It was a
week of precious lives lost, endless hours of painful and sustained rescue and relief work, countless acts of
individual and community heroism, and a reaffirmation of the ties that forge the unity of the American
people in times of national emergency.  It was a week when America's broadcast media and other
communications companies performed with self-sacrifice and often heroism.   Most of Stern's
programming last week seemed sensitive to this and supportive of encouraging a positive reaction to the
disaster we had experienced.  So it was all the more surprising that remarks were made, from whatever
motivation, that so crudely distorted and demeaned the essential nobility of what our people were coming
together to accomplish.   Americans are a tolerant people, but hundreds of complaints coming to me in
recent days demonstrate heartfelt revulsion over statements that were, to many, offensive and indecent.    



                             - FCC -