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David Morris: How America lost control of its airwaves (HURL)
StarTribune.com ^ | 1/10/11 | David Morris

Posted on 01/11/2011 1:07:17 PM PST by ButThreeLeftsDo

In the wake of the murders in Tucson, our leaders once again are calling for civility in public discourse.

We forget that for almost 40 years, we didn't have to plead for civility. We demanded it.

The story of how we did so, and why we stopped, illuminates the intersection of politics and culture.

At the dawn of the broadcasting era, the government declared that the airwaves belonged to the public, and it fashioned rules to protect the public interest.

Broadcasters paid no money for their licenses; in return license renewals depended on whether the station served the public interest. Broadcasters were "public trustees."

As the Federal Radio Commission (FRC), forerunner of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), explained, "It is as if people of a community should own a station and turn it over to the best man in sight with this injunction: 'Manage this station in our interest.'"

The commission made clear there was no room for "propaganda stations."

(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...


TOPICS: Conspiracy; Government; Politics; Society
KEYWORDS: airwaves; giffords; limbaugh; talkradio; tucson
Oh.....You're gonna LOVE this one....
1 posted on 01/11/2011 1:07:19 PM PST by ButThreeLeftsDo
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To: ButThreeLeftsDo

This guy is an expert at identifying ThoughtCrime.


2 posted on 01/11/2011 1:11:34 PM PST by La Lydia
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To: ButThreeLeftsDo

Americans lost control when the government took control.


3 posted on 01/11/2011 1:13:11 PM PST by GeronL (How DARE you have an opinion!!)
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To: ButThreeLeftsDo

How the Democrat-Loving Far-Left Legacy Media Lost Control of the Airwaves.


4 posted on 01/11/2011 1:14:37 PM PST by skeeter
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To: ButThreeLeftsDo

“The commission made clear there was no room for “propaganda stations.”

To clarify: Only leftist propaganda is to be alowed.


5 posted on 01/11/2011 1:15:06 PM PST by cotton
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To: ButThreeLeftsDo

We lost control of the airwaves because everything costs so much, and all anyone wants/needs to do, is generate revenue.


6 posted on 01/11/2011 1:15:26 PM PST by stuartcr (When politicians politicize issues, aren't they just doing their job?)
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To: ButThreeLeftsDo

Just another lunatic article by a left-wing hack. What all these liberal hacks seek is to shut down conservative speech. That’s it. If all the talk on the radio was dominated by left-wing nuts, this clown would have no problem. Which is why he isn’t not bothered by the fact that libs control every other form of media. It’s useless to try to argue with these morons. Reality scarcely makes a dent in their little bubbles..


7 posted on 01/11/2011 1:30:51 PM PST by driftless2 (For long-term happiness, learn how to play the accordion.)
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To: ButThreeLeftsDo

Non-controversial quotes that get little or no mainstream media coverage:

“If Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, ‘We’re gonna punish our enemies and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us,’ if they don’t see that kind of upsurge in voting in this election, then I think it’s gonna be harder.”

“I ceased to advertise my mother’s race at the age of twelve or thirteen, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites.”

“I found solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against my mother’s race.”

“The point I was making was not that Grandmother harbors any racial animosity. She doesn’t. But she is a typical white person...”

“That’s just how white folks will do you.”

“And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

All of those were from the current occupant of our White House, the Kenyan/Indonesian/Hawaiian from Chicago who followed our 43rd President and will (not soon enough) turn the White House over to our 44th president when we elect her in November of next year. Now for a word from his spiritual mentor:

“Racism is how this country (America) was founded and how this country is still run!”

“America is still the number one killer in the world.”

Somehow, the liberals don’t complain unless it furthers their political agenda. It’s about winning and not values - sadly because they have no values beyond a lust for power.


8 posted on 01/11/2011 1:31:20 PM PST by Pollster1 (Natural born citizen of the USA, with the birth certificate to prove it)
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To: ButThreeLeftsDo

Individuals aren’t this stupid. This type of mass idiocy has to be organized. Liberals defend and promote the violent movies, videogames and music that saturates our culture, but condemn non-violent speech they disagree with as dangerous. All without the slightest shred of evidence the shooter was exposed to anything on talk radio.


9 posted on 01/11/2011 1:39:41 PM PST by Conan the Conservative (Crush the liberals, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of the hippies.)
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To: ButThreeLeftsDo
We forget that for almost 40 years, we didn't have to plead for civility. We demanded it.

Who's this "we" you speak of? I'm pretty sure I'm not part of that group.

10 posted on 01/11/2011 1:42:58 PM PST by Brett66 (Where government advances, and it advances relentlessly , freedom is imperiled -Janice Rogers Brown)
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To: ButThreeLeftsDo

The more government, the less Liberty.


11 posted on 01/11/2011 1:43:47 PM PST by onedoug
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To: ButThreeLeftsDo

The RedStar is in mid-season form, I see.


12 posted on 01/11/2011 1:44:26 PM PST by Colonel_Flagg ("I'd rather lose fighting for the right cause than win fighting for the wrong cause." - Jim DeMint)
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To: ButThreeLeftsDo
At the dawn of the broadcasting era

...which just happen to coincide with the "Progressive" era, in which Woodrow Wilson had 20,000 political prisoners and FDR crapped all over the Constitution to give big government unconstitutional powers like being the arbiter of truth. Yeah, some dawn. More like the coming of a 100 year darkness.

13 posted on 01/11/2011 1:49:05 PM PST by backwoods-engineer (The future? Imagine Cass Sunstein's boot stamping on Lincoln's beard, forever.)
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To: ButThreeLeftsDo
I for one believe that it is talk radio that has quelled the violence. Think about it. The fairness doctrine was repealed by Pres. Reagan in 1981. It was then that we finally had a media outlet for conservatism. From the early 60’s through 1981 we had at least 7 assassinations, or attempted assassination all conducted by the left wing. JFK, RFK, MLK, Ford (twice), Agnew (I think), and Reagan. Ergo; talk radio has done more to quell violence than anything the suppressive left wing has.
14 posted on 01/11/2011 1:59:26 PM PST by Senior Chief (Here I am, right where I left myself.)
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To: cotton
“The commission made clear there was no room for “propaganda stations.”
To clarify: Only leftist propaganda is to be allowed.
It all traces back to the presumption of the objectivity of journalism. If journalism is objective, this makes perfect sense. If journalism is not objective, or even if its objectivity cannot be proven, the idea of propaganda-free stations is a fatuous conceit.

And the objectivity of journalism can never be proven, since the claim is actually the negative of "absence of bias," and you can never prove a negative. Worse, it is obvious that journalism's famous rules, "If it bleeds it leads," "'Man Bites Dog' rather than 'Dog Bites Man,'" and "There's nothing more worthless than yesterday's newspaper" promote the ability of the journalist to interest the public and have nothing inherent to do with "the public interest." IOW, the famous rules of journalism have nothing to do with objectivity and everything to do with the self interest of journalists.

It follows from the self-interestedness of journalism that a claim of journalistic objectivity manifests a failure to separate what they want to be true from what is true - the very opposite of objectivity.

Consequently we know that journalists are unqualified to separate truth from propaganda.

15 posted on 01/11/2011 3:53:47 PM PST by conservatism_IS_compassion (DRAFT PALIN)
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