Posted on 06/25/2007 8:05:29 AM PDT by flixxx
Unfairness Doctrine
By The Editors
Remember Jim Hightower? We didn’t think so. He was the former Texas state official who was, for a few minutes, the Left’s great hope for a liberal talk-radio host to challenge the domination of Rush Limbaugh. It didn’t work out. Neither did former New York governor Mario Cuomo, another failed radio talker. And neither did, most recently, Air America, the attempt to build an entire network of liberal talk.
Nothing has worked too successfully for liberal political talkers. Rush, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham, among others, are as dominant as ever. The only thing that has changed is that liberals now seem less interested in challenging conservative talk radio in the marketplace than in strangling it with government regulation. And that presents a much greater threat than another misguided attempt to find the liberal Limbaugh.
A new blueprint for a government takedown of conservative talk radio comes from the liberal think tank Center for American Progress, founded and run by former Clinton White House chief of staff John Podesta. In a report entitled, “The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio ,” the Center outlines a plan that would, if implemented, do enormous damage not only to conservatives on talk radio, but to freedom of speech as well.
Surveying 257 stations owned by the top-five commercial station groups, the report’s authors found the unsurprising news that 91 percent of total weekday talk programming is conservative, and just nine percent “progressive.” Rather than attribute that imbalance to the generally conceded superiority of conservative programming — most radio professionals would tell you that Rush Limbaugh is simply better at what he does than any of the liberal opponents who have tried to compete with him — the report finds a deeper, more sinister case. “The gap between conservative and progressive talk radio,” it concludes, “is the result of multiple structural problems in the U.S. regulatory system. “ According to Podesta’s Center, those structural problems can only be solved by government action.
First, the report proposes new national and local limits on the number of radio stations one company can own. Second, it recommends a de facto quota system to ensure that more women and minorities own radio stations. And finally, it says the government should “require commercial owners who fail to abide by enforceable public interest obligations to pay a fee to support public broadcasting.”
The two-for-the-price-of-one attempt to have the government both stifle voices that don’t meet “enforceable public interest obligations” while raising money for government broadcasting is certainly a worthwhile strategy for the Left. Not for free speech and free markets, however.
In addition, the report claims that the Fairness Doctrine — the government rule that, before it was repealed in 1987, required broadcasters to present opposing viewpoints on controversial public issues — might not really be dead, and thus might not have to be reestablished by Congress. Instead, a new administration might simply decide to enforce it again. That point is highly debatable, but it wouldn’t be surprising if President Clinton, President Obama, or President Edwards were to give it a try.
The fact is, liberals simply haven’t attracted talk-radio audiences. It’s not their market. But since they still largely have Hollywood, academia, the New York Times, PBS, NPR, a network news division or two … they’ll survive. And we on the Right will, too, if we keep the Center for American Progress’s dangerously wrongheaded ideas off the table.
ping
You're right, liberal have no shame.
Where are you going to find anyone in the media or politics that will admit NPR or PBS are liberal? The same people would tell you Boortz is conservative and I am guessing to most on FR, he would not be viewed as conservative. The "Fairness Doctrine" would be more aptly called the "Dissenters Doctrine."
Rush is outstanding, he knows his audience, he has mastered his craft and the issues he pounds. He was also helped ALOT by having Clinton in the White House for 8 years and a continual choice of issues to select. Still, he has maintained his audience even through the Republican controlled years.
Yes.
"If it is, it is about the XIVth Amend more than anything else."
How so?? Yours is the first comment I've seen that in any way connects CFR and the Fourteenth Amendment.
I would not doubt that. Corporations have been legal persons since the XIVth Amend got interpreted in several court cases, and now can own private property and can privately donate to political campaigns. CFR is oriented to controlling these legal persons. This is 99% of the reason CFR exists: the Unions are also Corporations—formerly a hugh issue and still not entirely quiet.
The same goes for public universities, public schools, they are supposed to be objective, non-partisan and non-sectarian. Everyone with a brain sees how that works out in practice.
The fact is, nobody on the left can explain their position in straightforward talk, without lying, and without namecalling. Hence, they are boring and repetitive. I used to enjoy listening to some of the guests on Hannity and Colmes. However, 1/3 of the show was commercials (and “later in the show” announcements) and 1/3 was Alan Colmes who is an idiot shill for the left that spews the left’s garbage regardless of what the guest is there to discuss. Now, I won’t waste my time watching it because 2/3 of it are a waste of time.
It's still a "free speech" issue. McCain and Feingold may have "intended" to rein in corporate donations, but if that was their intention, they threw out the baby with the bath water.
The ONLY acceptable limitation to money spent on campaigns should be "full disclosure". Publish who made the donations and to whom, with info available to anyone who asks, with internet, snail mail, or any other means of asking.
What happens when the lines between fact and opinion are blurred? What happens when an opposing viewpoint is represented by someone who is incompetent, or inarticulate? What happens when a viewpoint is stealthed under the guise of ‘entertainment’? Who decides when ‘fair’ is fair?
This not only reeks of suppression of free speech, but is rife with terms of abuse and simply puts it to someone to decide what YOU get to hear. Oh, and a source of endless litigation!
I recall a noticeable shift to accurate reporting just after the "Republican revolution" (remember that?). It lasted just long enough for the NPR de-funding proposals to be taken off the table; then it was back to business as usual. I don't know if it was successful lobbying, or the fact that so many people like to get their morning and evening news "commercial free," and complained to their congresspimples, but I seem to remember this happening.
I wrote DiFi yesterday on just this topic. Bloggers and posters should be flooding her, Clinton’s, Boxer’s offices with your complaints. These louts actually think they know more about democracy, free speech than the public. They do not! See DiFi’s malarky on Chris Wallace’s Fox show yesterday.
Well, by golly, I can: it was obviously structural problems that can only be solved by government intervention, Duh !
He was still around earlier in the year, driving me to change the station, or turn off the radio. He'd come on for a minute or so.
I noticed that the station moved up Her Perkiness into that break, driving me to change the station or turn off the radio.
Don't know if or when Hightower is still on.
The lefties just won’t acknowledge their advantage in TV, cable and print media.
Imagine how this will DEVASTATE NPR.
If NPR has to live by the fairness doctrine, 12 hours of their programing is GONE every day.
SCREW FREE SPEECH & INDEPENDENT THINKING, WE WANT TOTAL CONTROL OF ALL AREAS OF YOUR LIVES!!!!
Therefore they see it as their opportunity & right to:
1) take your money in the form of new (or repealed) taxes,
2) take away your right to dissent from their politically correct way of thinking by branding you a 'hate monger' if you speak out against their newfound protected class of Gays, Lesbians, Illegal Immigrants and other such types,
3) and to continually brainwash your children in school under the guise of EduKAtion while its pure political propaganda.
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