Posted on 04/15/2007 5:28:23 AM PDT by Nextrush
"Freedom is everybody's business, your business, my business, the church's business and a man who will not use his freedom to defend his freedom, does not deserve his freedom."
(Dr. Carl McIntire-preacher who lost radio station to "Fairness Doctrine" in 1973)
Back in the 1970's this controversial radio preacher's right to free speech was championed by the National Association of Broadcasters and the Radio TV News Directors Association.
The attack on Don Imus and his firing, along with Al Sharpton's moves to define what is "acceptable" on the airwaves brings back memories of the "Fairness Doctrine" Days" when "right-wing" radio preachers were attacked by liberals who used government power to bring down their enemies and destroy the First Amendment in the process.
Ironically, Don Imus used a parody (Rev. Billy Sol Hargas) of the real preacher whose broadcast began the chilling of broadcast (Radio-TV) speech in the 1960's and 70's.
Bill James Hargis criticized a liberal man in a 1964 radio broadcast that was monitored by a Democrat Party political operation. Kennedy political advisors dreamed it up as a way to hit radio stations with equal time requests that would tone down the radio preachers pro-Goldwater broadcasting during the election campaign. Radio station owners would be forced to quiet the preachers down under pressure of having to give free "equal time" they couldn't make money on. The Kennedy program became the Lyndon Johnson program after the assassination.
One station owner said no to the equal time demand (Rev. John Norris of WGCB Radio-Red Lion, PA) and it led to a battle with the Federal Communications Commission and the famous-infamous Red Lion decision by the Supreme Court in 1969.
This set the stage for the Fairness Doctrine fight of Rev. Carl McIntire. McIntire believed in a strong brand of fundamentalism that saw evangelicals (Billy Graham) as compromisers.
In fact, McIntire saw himself as the leader of a 20th Century Reformation of Protestant Christianity from the liberal theology and politics of the mainline churches.
Dr. McIntire was a strong critic of the anti-war and civil rights movements embraced by 1960's liberals.
His ego was big and he wanted to dominate things, plus be the center of attention. His followers, many of them women, make him in my mind a Clintonesque figure.
In 1965 McIntire purchased radio station WXUR in Media, PA (a Philadelphia suburb) so his radio show could be broadcast in the area of his church.
The liberals in the community led by the Council of Churches (liberal churches) and ADL (Jewish liberals) went for an advertising boycott first. (Shades of Imus) They got local businesses to stop buying time in the semi-classical music format of the station.
McIntire then filled the broadcast schedule with paid radio preachers so he could keep the station in business.
The liberals went for the Fairness Dcotrine issue next and complained to the Federal Communications Commission that WXUR was one-sided.
They took particular offense with the "Freedom of Speech" talk show hosted by Tom Livezey. On this show a poem was read talking about a dog that urinated on the grave of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Eventually the FCC ordered a shutdown of WXUR over the Fairness Doctrine and court appeals failed. The station was shut down in July of 1973.
In his dissenting opinion on the case Federal Appeals judge David Bazleton put it this way:
"In subjecting WXUR....to the supreme penalty, the FCC...has also dealt a death blow to the licensee's freedom of speech and press. Furthermore, it has denied the listening public's access to the expression of many controversial views. Yet, the Commission would have us approve this action-in the name of the Fairness Doctrine!"
In another irony, the Richard Nixon FCC chaired by Barry Golwater's RNC Chairman from the 1960's, Dean Burch, ordered WXUR off the air. It was a station owned by a Goldwater supporter from 1964.
Carl McIntire's "sin" was in leading hundreds of thousands of people in six (First in April 1970) marches to demand victory in the Vietnam War. Nixon administration policy was to negotiate "peace" with the Communists and get American troops out. (Follow public opinion and win politically, too)
McIntire could point to evidence of that including his being placed on what the liberal anti-Nixon media dubbed the "enemies list" along with anti-war hippies and liberal news reporters.
In addition, ex-White House counsel Charles Colson wrote McIntire a letter of apology from prison after Colson decided to follow Jesus Christ. Colson was known as the "hatchet man" of the Nixon Administration.
The net effect of the Red Lion and WXUR cases was to chill speech on the airwaves and it took a Supreme Court reversal-Ronald Reagan FCC combination in the 1980's to get the Fairness Doctrine on the back burner.
Now we have advertiser imtimidation of broadcasting led by the likes of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. Sharpton saying something needs to be done about what is "acceptable" in broadcasting.
Its bad enough that the big advertisers and media companies are intimidated. I sense that liberalism in the form of "diversity" appointments to leadership (leftists under the label of women and minorities) is changing the scheme of things.
Would the National Association of Broadcasters and the Radio Television News Directors Association of today be willing to defend the First Amendment from this attack like they did in the 1970's?
If the Sharpton-Jackson mentality ever becomes official government policy, look out. Then the First Amendment is their toilet paper.
It details these "Fairness Doctrine Days" and is deserving of a movie, although I don't envision Clooney doing it.
I'm now listening to an audio stream of Imus from 1972 (1st anniversary in New York) with lots of controversial comment including one guy telling Imus that prostitution should be legal. Chuck McCord was doing the news back then, too. And he has a lispy gay phony newscaster.
Of course, many of us have become leery of First Amendment protection, due to the trashers (Piss Christ, etc - ad nauseum)
So Johnson was behind the fairness doctrine and getting churches under the IRS.
It actually dates back to the Truman-FDR days but as you can see the liberals used it to effectively attack enemies who criticized them in the 60’s and 70’s.
And the Nixon Administration (Paris Peace Talks, Treaty) didn’t like McIntire because he wanted to win the Vietnam War, hence the FCC shutting him down over the “Fairness Dcotrine.”
Liberal Democrats and some GOP enablers too. The same problem in this country today.
Imus got was coming to him, just like Whoopi was expelled from Slim Fast when she made Jackass comments about the President. Money talks! And when masses of customers are fed up with certain diatribes, it is their Constitutional Right to respond.
Imus is just another example of what happens to white people who make the mistake of offending the black folks.
Imus was a liberal and definitely has nothing against black people. In fact i am sure heb would lean over backwards to be helpful to most black organisations.
Howard Cosell who was another white man that was tossed aside because of blacks being offended was a great fan of black sports figures. He helped make Cassious Clay a personality, helped hiom become famous and always pushed black sports figures as being great. Yet they tossed all Howards good works aside and attacked him for a small offhand remark.
Imus was making what he thought was a joke,.But he made it about the wrong race. had he made it about whites ,polish , irish most any other race or sect he would have gotten away.
No he stepped in the dog doo that is black offense.
So he’s gone and we wonder who will be next.
One thing is certain the ones who need to be taken to task for this Al & Jesse wont be bothered. They will go on race baiting and not only allowed to get away with it , they will be praised for it.
No doubt, but its the “what’s next” that bothers me and you better be afraid of that if you value your freedom of speech.
This can lead to speech codes imposed by the corporate people to censor radio. Codes that equal the power of the Fairness Doctrine.
And if Sharpton’s line about what’s “acceptable” in broadcasting were to become official government policy (imagine it extended to the internet) then freedom for all of us is lost.
Imus used common street vernacular. So common that a white guy in his 70’s was familiar with it. Problem is, he was not licensed by blacks to use “their words” and paid a hefty price.
What kind of Freedom of Speech is it to call a Basketball team , nappy headed hos? If you say it, then you are accountable for it.
The same Freedom of Speech that protects a crucifix in a jar of urine as art.
Yes..... or the Freedom of Speech or Expression of a Dung Laden Madonna in an Art museum.
That radio station had someone read a poem about a dog urinating on Martin Luther King’s grave.
Imagine that today.
Literal nooses would be in the streets for that.
I’d never make that comment myself, but you better understand its just a straw man like that poem that liberals used in their campaign to impose the “Fairness Doctrine” in the 1970’s.
The real goal, silence political enemies.
And Shartpon is using this bad comment to intimidate and ultimately silence those who disagree with him. (including radio talk hosts)
Or the Freedom of Speech, that gives John Kerry the right to belittle our troops
I don’t care for Al Sharpton, he is stuck in the sixities, and if Al Sharpton starts calling White Folks deragatory terms on his radio show, then it will be his time to go.
“What is next” is the true fear. And by your name I can tell what you think. I am in total agreement. If they go after Rush then we must rise up. He has twenty million dedicated listeners. And for the advertisers that’s a whole lot of people to offend by pulling your ad’s!
I agree with what you said, about Imus just doing what he does all the time on his radio show. But he stepped on someones toes, and he got busted.
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