Posted on 02/01/2004 9:39:24 AM PST by Andy from Beaverton
Talk radio: It's time for more than right-wing hot air Why should we settle for just RIGHT-WING HOT AIR? 02/01/04GARRETT EPPS
I t was a match worthy of World Wrestling Entertainment. In this corner, one mild-mannered, wordy academic; in the other, Kevin Mannix's minister of information, the pistol-packing Godzilla of Portland talk radio, Lars Larson.
It was the fall of 2001. I was a visiting professor at Duke University. A Portland radio show wanted someone to explain the new policy of trying foreign terrorists in front of military commissions. I boned up on the topic and called in at the appointed time.
"You're on the air with Lars Larson," said a voice. Then another -- it sounded like God on steroids -- boomed, "So Professor Epps, what do you think of the Portland Police Department refusing to cooperate in the war on terror?"
At least, I think that's what he said. My life, to coin a phrase, passed in front of my eyes. "I don't know anything about it," I managed to croak.
"Oh, that's no problem," said the Voice. "See, what happened was -- "
"I really can't comment," I said. "We can talk about military commissions, or I can hang up."
The next day, the producer called again. "Lars wants you back," she said. OK, I answered -- but this time I really do need to know what he wants to talk about.
I've never heard from him again.
Since then, whenever I hear some high-testosterone right-wing radio host thrashing a tongue-tied liberal, I wonder whether the match was fixed from the start. Did they even tell the victim what the show would be about?
There are people, I know, who think this kind of ambush radio is genuine discussion of public issues. There also are people who think World Wrestling Entertainment is sports.
WWE fans, of course, are welcome to their choice of fun. But what if the government was building pro-wrestling arenas and shutting down competing sports? Would we still feel so confident the public's choice was "free"? And what if the government did the same thing to create a political advantage for one party?
Make no mistake: That is what's happened in AM radio over the past two decades. As a result of government policies, talk radio has become the GOP's Air Force. Since the 1980s, Republican administrations have been manipulating media law to protect an important part of their attack machine.
As we contemplate the howling wilderness of democratic discourse in the early 21st century, it's time at least to ask ourselves whether we want to change direction. Into the badlands
I first heard Rush Limbaugh in 1989. I was heading east out of Tucumcari, New Mexico, across the forbidding wilderness the Spanish explorers called el malpais -- the badlands. As I scuttled across the desert, my car radio could pull in only one station, an AM giant out of Amarillo, Texas, that broadcast Limbaugh's show not once but twice a day.
For three hours in the sweltering heat, I listened to Rush denounce "Fort Worthless Jim" -- the then-speaker of the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives, Jim Wright. Wright, to be sure, was something of a sleazeball. But by sundown I was wondering whether it might not be nice every now and then to at least call him by his legal name.
But fairness no longer mattered on talk radio. Until 1987, the Federal Communications Commission had enforced something called the "fairness doctrine," which required broadcasters to provide opposing viewpoints on controversial issues.
When Reagan Republicans got control of the FCC they repealed the doctrine that guided broadcast and radio for 38 years. That opened the door for Limbaugh and his imitators -- they could savage Democrats for days and hours on end, with no opportunity to reply. "News-talk" stations soar These Republicans understood the political power of the medium. Ronald Reagan and Jesse Helms began their political careers as broadcasters. But their influence was somewhat limited: the targets of their attacks sometimes got to bite back. (Once, during Helms' years as editorial writer for WRAL-TV in Raleigh, a local rabbi got equal time to protest the future senator's habit of deliberately mispronouncing Jewish names.)
After 1987, "Fort Worthless Jim" had no recourse. And talk radio became a potent political weapon. In 1980, there were 75 stations in the country devoted to "news-talk." Today, there are more than 1,300.
I know that in theory these could be liberal attack radio stations. But in the real world we live in, the multimillionaires who own chains of radio stations tend to be Republican. Very, very Republican, in fact. "Freedom of the press," as the great critic A.J. Liebling famously said, "Is guaranteed only to those who own one." The same is true in radio.
Most of the more than 1,000 stations simply devote all their airtime to syndicated right-wing programs. And the political effect has been dramatic. Political scientist David C. Barker, author of "Rushed to Judgment: Talk Radio, Persuasion and American Political Behavior," has analyzed statistics that suggest the Republican "landslide" of 1994 stemmed largely from the increased polarization of one demographic -- right-wing talk listeners.
The Gingrich Republicans probably agree; early in 1995, the 73 new GOP House members formed something called "the dittohead caucus," after Limbaugh's name for the listeners who echo his every pronouncement.
The situation got worse in 1996 when the Republican Congress passed a landmark telecommunications act. One of its provisions lifted longstanding limits on multistation ownership by nationwide chains -- right-wing talk's biggest purveyors.
Before the law, no one company in the United States owned more than 40 stations. Today the largest -- Clear Channel, the free-speech champions who banned John Lennon's "Imagine" and more than 100 other songs after Sept. 11 -- owns more than 1,200. Revising the rules The 2000 election brought us another Republican administration, and another Republican-dominated FCC. This time, the commission set its sights on the rules forbidding one company to dominate local television markets.
Despite unprecedented public outcry, the commission's chairman, Michael Powell, son of Secretary of State Colin Powell, pushed through the rules raising the number of TV stations one company can own, and permitting TV and newspaper companies to take over radio stations in the same market. There was not even a pretense of open hearings.
The media consolidators may have overplayed their hand this time. A strange coalition of liberals and small-town conservatives convinced Congress to add a new measure to the omnibus spending bill President Bush signed a few days ago. The FCC had decided one company can own 45 percent of the nation's TV market. The bill reduces that to 39 percent -- still more than before.
Even GOP lawmakers such as Sens. Trent Lott of Mississippi and Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas have wondered aloud whether corporate domination is good for the airwaves. They've hinted it may be time to look at the "fairness doctrine," too. Conservative Republican publications such as The Wall Street Journal and The Weekly Standard quickly savaged them as disloyal.
Airwaves belong to the public Is "fairness" the answer? The big media and their political allies like to paint the question as a First Amendment issue. Certainly we should be cautious about giving the government too much power to supervise programming. But the airwaves, unlike a newspaper's printing press, aren't private property; they belong to the people.
The current "owners" of our AM dial are there only because government chose them to hold its licenses. Asking them to make a commitment to open discussion doesn't seem like too much in exchange for what is essentially a license to print money.
And the FCC and its defenders aren't First Amendment values poster children. Powell and his crew have mounted an unprecedented crusade against "indecent" programming, meaning sexually suggestive shows.
Just last week, for example, the commission fined Clear Channel a record $755,000 for playing a segment called "Bubba the Love Sponge" on some of its Florida outlets. I'm sure the "Sponge" number was distasteful -- but this is censorship in aid of specific cultural values. If sex isn't protected, it's hard to see why Michael Savage should get a free pass.
The struggle to restore a semblance of fairness will be a hard one. The Republican right knows talk radio functions as its Air Force; it won't give up the partisan advantage easily. And there is room for debate about what shape a new fairness doctrine should take.
Certainly the airwaves should have room for Rush Limbaugh. True, he is a windbag and a hypocrite. (If you doubt that Rush is also, as Al Franken says, "a big, fat liar," consider that when the Senate voted on the media-ownership rules earlier this year, Rush generated thousands of calls to lawmakers' offices by telling his "dittoheads" the vote would actually restore the fairness doctrine and silence him.) Rush also is a giant talent.
But would it be so terrible if every now and then his targets got to answer him on the air? Would radio really be destroyed if station owners had to respect the diverse voices of their local communities? As a hard-core First Amendment junkie, I don't think opening the airwaves to more voices would do harm to freedom of speech.
Sure, there's room on the air for WWE-style entertainment. Most of us enjoy it. But not all the time. Every once in a while, even AM radio ought to broadcast a match that isn't fixed.
The airwaves are closed? Who knew?
The arrogance is amazing, isn't it?
For decades, America's only sources of news commentary and analysis were the liberal networks (Jennings, Cronkite, Rather, Brokaw, etc.) and the liberal newspapers (LA Times, NY Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, Washington Post, etc., etc., etc., ad nauseum). Now, mainstream America finally gets the opportunity to hear a little truth via AM radio and it's like the sky crashed in on these elitist liberal scumbags.
It is no surprise that this leftist, Epps, doesn't see the irony in the fact that as soon as the monopoly of the liberals was broken and Americans had access to truth, the tide turned and most of America, outside of the parasite nests (cities), went Republican.
Sure they do, mostly hip-hop or NPR.
Notice that there is no mention of the "free market," or the need for any programs, talk or otherwise, to attract enough viewers, to attract enough sponsors, to stay on the air. This whine by the professor only demonstates that he is a doofus. Did I miss anything?
Congressman Billybob
There is a "fairness doctrine" of sorts in part of radio..."public broadcasting" they are required by law to provide balance. I kid you not.
The result is ultra wacko leftwing nutjobs on Pacifica and only less so on NPR. Balance? NPR doesn't have one full-time, conservative on air talent. Not one. That's what their idea of fairness means.
"But the airwaves, unlike a newspaper's printing press, aren't private property; they belong to the people."
Because the airwaves are public property which the broadcasters license from the government, it does seem to me that some sort of a "compelling public interest" argument for "fairness" is not entirely without merit. Rush Limbaugh and other talk show hosts deliver their message from a private soapbox, but the private soapbox sits on public property. So the lefties have an angle here. I don't think it's a given that we'll be able to maintain the sort of favorable situation that we have now regarding content. Depending on which way the political winds blow, it could change.
Now, I wonder what effect the new digital satellite radio (like XM) that's coming online will have on the situation. If those are satellites are privately-owned, and if they're broadcasting at frequencies where available frequency slots are effectively unlimited, then we ought to be able to make a fairly airtight "private property" defense for "unfairness" in the content that's broadcast there.
It seems to me that we should keep pushing to keep things as they are now in traditional AM and FM (obviously). That will require a continuing effort as long as there are liberals around. But I think we should also be looking towards XM where it looks like we have the possibility of a decisive victory in securing control of content.
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