Posted on 11/08/2008 4:04:09 AM PST by Man50D
Democrat Henry Rivera, a former commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission, is expected to head President-elect Barack Obama's FCC transition team, a move that has sparked fear in media circles that the Fairness Doctrine may return to silence conservative talk radio.
If reenacted, the "Fairness Doctrine" would require broadcasts over the public airwaves to give equal time to opposing political views. For talk radio, which boomed after the law's repeal in 1987 by building an audience devoted to conservative talk, the law's return would decimate the industry's marketability.
Many fear the "Fairness Doctrine" would drive talk radio hosts – like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Michael Savage – out of business.
Brian Maloney of the blog The Radio Equalizer said in his post, "Meet Talk's Executioner," he believes Rivera will use his position to bring back the law for that very purpose.
Rivera, according to Maloney, "is expected to lead the push to dismantle commercial talk radio that is favored by a number of Democratic Party senators. Rivera will play a pivotal role in preventing critics from having a public voice during Obama's tenure in office."
Rivera served on the five-member FCC from 1981 to 1985 under Republican chairman Mark Fowler. He is now a partner at the Wiley Rein law firm, the same firm current FCC chairman Kevin Martin worked at prior to his appointment to the FCC.
Rivera resigned from the FCC in 1985. The remainder of his term was served by President Reagan appointee Patricia Diaz Dennis, who opposed the Fairness Doctrine. The law was then repealed in 1987 after the FCC admitted it "had the net effect of reducing rather than enhancing the discussion of controversial issues of public importance."
(Excerpt) Read more at worldnetdaily.com ...
Next... conservative websites.
Satellite radio subscription boom.
Sat radio receivers and subscriptions will become THE hot Christmas gift.
Well, who said they can’t destroy the constitution in 4 years?
1st Amendment down, next up, the 2nd.
I hadn’t been able to get into FR all day (Saturday)! I thought they had already turned the lights out!
Imagine if we had representatives in DC that fought this hard for us! Sheesh he hasn’t been Pres-elect for a week, and he’s already got his vicious staff picked out and is going after talk radio. Libs must be in heaven.
Perhaps true...but it has a drastic effect on AM radio. We could be talking about 300 stations around the nation that are in dire financial trouble by October of 2009. They will come for bailout money too...but the true problem for them is that they will never be able to bring back talk-radio, so congress will fund yearly bailouts for these folks.
The other curious side is that we will all learn how to lodge complaints...and this tiny crew of three individuals who run this governmental control game...were built for the 1960’s style situation. Since the mid-80s when we stopped this game....our radio networks have tripled...TV has more than two hundred significant networks around the nation...each and every single town now has four stations minimum, and with thirty thousand complaints being lodged per week by both the left and right...these folks won’t be able to do much of anything.
“Next... conservative websites.”
well, what happened tonight to FR?
I hadn’t been able to get into FR all day (Saturday)! I thought they had already turned the lights out!
I couldn’t get on FR, either. I thought they had shut us off, too. What happened?
I hadn’t been able to get into FR all day (Saturday)! I thought they had already turned the lights out!
I couldn’t get on FR, either. I thought they had shut us off, too. What happened?
so what? the whole point is to make sure that the conservative message isn’t heard by many people.
I couldn’t either. Just got on now. Thought they had been hacked.
Ditto
Yeah, I thought FR was shut down too. Couldn’t get on all... Maybe a server problem. I have been running virus scans for the last few hours. lol
Can they realistically just shut down talk radio. Seems radical.
Ditto.
Absolutely they can and will with a new Fairness Doctrine.
Remember, Obama called the Constitution a fundamentally flawed document.
Just got the bad news from John. The system is down hard and he's going to have to make a trip up to the data center to fix it. He says we'll probably be down all day. Jim
The latest message is:
Looks like John has made some progress. It's running, but just barely.
Looks like its still a major problem... expect further difficulties.
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