Posted on 12/02/2003 10:06:24 AM PST by kattracks
Democratic presidential front-runner Howard Dean pledged Monday night to "break up" the Fox News Channel along with other conservative news outlets owned by media baron Rupert Murdoch."Eleven companies in this country control 90 percent of what ordinary people are able to read and watch on their television," the ex-Vermont governor complained to MSNBC's Chris Matthews, who then asked the candidate point-blank:
"Would you break up Fox? ... Rupert Murdoch has 'The Weekly Standard.' It has got a lot of other interests. It has got the New York Post. Would you break it up?"
Dean shot back, "On ideological grounds, absolutely yes."
A moment later the "Hardball" host pressed: "Seriously. As a public policy, would you bring industrial policy to bear and break up these conglomerations of power?"
At that point Dean seemed to sense that he had gone too far and began to equivocate, saying, "I don't want to answer whether I would break up Fox or not."
The leading Democrat then explained, "What I'm going to do is appoint people to the FCC that believe democracy depends on getting information from all portions of the political spectrum, not just one."
Dean banned it. It had too large a market share. You should consider an option from a different portion of the medicinal spectrum. Perhaps Goody's Headache Powder.
Yes, but there are a ton of radio stations and cable/TV stations , many of them independently owned. So what if there a dozen companies with vertical ownership? The FCC still regulates and I think their recent ruling of 45 % by large companies is reasonable, given the high capital costs required.
Remember, there was nary a word when it was just GE, Viacom, etc. NYT Corp. owns how many newspapers? Gannet and Hearst have huge horizontal monopolies (and all their newspapers editorials sound the same), and I dont remember the Left getting exercised by any of that.
The recent ruling by the FCC has been distorted, primarily because the Left is out to silence Murdoch, not because of some bogus concern with "diversity". (Many if not most local stations use network or AP news anyway, did you notice?)
I'm not.....it's what he is, partly. I don't know if you heard Rush today, but i guarantee you the liberals are gonna be screaming about him telling people to turn the television news off and spare themselves the torture and get what they need from the radio. I did this 3 months ago and I feel MUCH better. Like Rush said, we already know what they're gonna say anyway. It's not like their mantra ever changes.
I agree but I think the same pretty much applies to any of the neocommies running on the Democrat ticket. The worst nightmare of all is Hillary, of course. The Democrat agenda is to repeal the Constitution by fiat -- to hell with amending it and due process of law!
Hmmm....so the way to do that is to silence the ONLY conservative media outlets. Sure Howie....we believe you. You ignorant, arrogant buffoon.
Open mouth. Insert big ol, leftist foot.
Repeat.
Repeat.
Repeat.
Keep repeating until November 2004.
I saw the rebroadcast of the Hardball show late last night (had trouble getting to sleep, and this didn't help!) Yes, Dean says one really stupid thing for each ten things he says, but on those other nine, he had that audience of college kids eating out of his hand. Anyone without critical thinking skills (for instance, a typical Rat voter) can easily ignore the ten percent of whoppers, because they get their fill of raw meat from the other 90% of Dean-speak. He's glib, and he knows how to hone in on an audience. Even if your daddy bought your way into medical school, you still have to get through it somehow. Dean's not as dumb as the 10% of his most outrageous remarks would suggest.
Unless his Rat challengers find a spine, he will coast to the nomination, relatively pain free. If he's a foregone conclusion for the nomination by the middle of February, he has nearly nine months to smooth things over with the losing Rats' bases. Only the Clinton wing will be a hard sell, and I suspect that he's got plans in his back pocket to deal with them.
We face a tougher fight than we'd like to believe if Howard the Coward is the Rat nominee, last night convinced me of that.
Do NOT call him a liberal. Dean is a Leftist. There's a huge difference!
And in most cities, ONE company controls ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of what ordinary people are able to read in their local newspapers. By comparison, the amount of diverse viewpoints available on television is mindboggling!
I believe that many of them are. But they're afraid to say anything publicly because if they speak out against the guy that ends up getting the nomination, then they'll lose their power within the party when he tosses them out on their butts. And nothing matters to them but power....
Would he break up George Soros' holdings??? I don't think sooooooo.
They are accustomed to getting away with everything. Why not? They never seem to be held accountable.
The original complaint against monopolies is that they resulted in a stale, uncompetitive business environment. If you listen to almost any radio station these days, the word "stale" perfectly describes what you are hearing.
I live in the New York radio market, and over the last couple of years the radio market has gotten rather bizarre. First, we started hearing advertisements on FM music stations for AM news or talk stations (the stations were owned by the same conglomerate). In the last few weeks, I've started hearing ads on one FM music station for another FM music station that plays a different type of music.
I'm not an old-fashioned person by nature, but radio was far more interesting when the radio stations didn't all sound the same.
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