Posted on 11/10/2008 1:19:49 PM PST by Ouderkirk
Talk radio lost this federal election in two big ways. Its candidate, Republican John McCain, got creamed. And its most dedicated enemies, who want to trim talk radio’s sails, were massively empowered.
Elements of the team of Presidentelect Barack “Hussein” Obama, as they were fond of calling him, and the expanded Democratic majority will move to remind broadcasters of a fundamental tenet of broadcast law.
That is, that the airwaves do not belong to the station “owners,” as they call themselves, but to the people of the United States of America.
The concept that station “owners” were mere licensees who kept their permits on grounds of good behavior and community service was undermined by President Bill Clinton in 1996 and then totally lost under President Bush.
As station ownership became more consolidated, talk radio became more virulent, if not violent, and one-sided.
Statistics on licensees are hard to come by. But Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., noted that in just seven years the number of owners nationwide was cut by 25 percent; that four owners control 80 percent of the New York City market.
Minority ownership fell by 14 percent between 1996 and 2003. So did women ownership.
“Prior to 1996,” Feingold said, “one company couldn’t own more than 20 AM stations and 20 FM stations. Now two companies [nationally] control 42 percent of the content that reaches listeners and 45 percent of industry revenues.”
In the Buffalo Niagara market, ownership is similarly concentrated. From rough data I cobbled together from the Center for Public Integrity and other Web sites, at least 20 of the 34 stations serving the region are owned by only four companies, including one firm that controls seven outlets. With consolidation came irresponsibility.
The basic service that a broadcast
licensee owes a community is truth. As the election neared, that commodity was in short supply.
Obama was compared to Hitler on the “Mark Levin Show.” Obama would open the United States to an “invasion” of Muslims, according to the “Gunny” Bob Newman show. On the Lee Rodgers show, critics of Obama were going to “be jailed or killed.” Host Neal Boortz wanted to know how many prayer rugs Obama owns.
Bill O’Reilly falsely claimed on the radio that Obama did not vote to condemn a Moveon.org ad that lampooned Gen. David Petraeus.
With concentration of control, there is no effective way to answer the lies and smears on the radio. The Internet, whose ownership is still under question, is a useful way. But that’s a subject for another day.
Some Democrats, such as Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois, want to restore the equal time rule, abolished under President Ronald Reagan. Rep. Louise
M. Slaughter, D-Fairport, chairwoman of the House Rules Committee, has also backed the return of this rule, which would require broadcasters to air opposing views.
There are constitutional issues related to imposing equal time. So the Democratic route seems to be to roll-back media consolidation.
Slaughter is co-founder and cochairwoman of the (congressional) Future of American Media caucus. She sponsored a resolution that could overturn a Bush administration rule relaxing even further restrictions on media consolidation.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N. Y., is a co-sponsor of the Senate companion. Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N. Y., is not. In the House, 58 Democrats backed Slaughter’s bill. Rep. Brian Higgins, D-Buffalo, is not among them.
The legislation landed in committee. It is sure to be reintroduced in the next Congress. The fetid puddle of falsehoods and coarseness that talk radio has become was 12 years in the making. The work of flushing it out starts in January.
“Minority ownership fell by 14 percent “
because Air America was buying up minority stations?
Journalism has died in 2008.
Journalism? My 7-year-old nephew can write better than this tripe!
Why pick on radio, start with TV (sarc).
Oh goody!! Does this mean that we can shut down the coarseness on BET and MTV also?
But it was OK by left wing talk radio to accuse Bush of lying about Iraq and killing US troops for his own oil interests, implying that Sarah Palin’s son was not her own or to burn an American flag...those are protected speech.
RE :”airwaves do not belong to the station “owners,” as they call themselves, but to the people of the United States of America”
LOL The people meaning the democrats, just like USSR represented ‘the workers’ . Bring it on Hugo Chavis. Clinton was not stupid enough to try this power grab, and he had a reason too, Rush was building an empire on his presidency. This will be a good one to fight.
One thing to note as Rush and Levin say “THEY HATE US”
“My 7-year-old nephew can write better than this tripe!”
Amazing, isn’t it? The incorrect punctuation(s) and ugly sentence flow is quite remarkable.
Coal first, then talk radio. This economy will die a slow death - one industry at a time.
So will everything you own under Obama's Commie Utopia.
Scary.
I remember many years back Rush said he would take his show off broadcast radio before he would have it subject to the “fairness” doctrine. With satellite. and iTunes subscriptions, it would be an easy technical transition.
Radio stations are already struggling to hang onto listeners. Lets see if the idiots in Congress are really stupid enough to kill the broadcast radio industry.
The Stalinist cockroaches feel comfortable to come out into the light.
The seeds for big trouble.
Congress shall make no law ....abridging the Freedom of Speech
Doug Turner’s a washed-up old windbag. I find it funny how he talks about how one-sided and “virulent” talk radio is, yet at the same time is the person who uses his column to lambaste conservatives at every turn. Typical liberal—a total hypocrite.
Buffalo has a very popular local talk radio station, WBEN (the station that plays Rush). The local libs HATE how popular and successful the station is. And guess what? The talk radio hosts are conservative (hence, the success of the station). Tom Bauerle is superb, and needless to say, not well-liked by the left.
I don’t get it. If you don’t like it, DON’T LISTEN TO IT. Just as I don’t watch Olbermann, or listen to NPR. We have that choice. Crybabies.
“Congress shall make no law ....abridging the Freedom of Speech”
TOTALLY AGREE with you.. but Congress has been known to ignore that document more than few times in the past century or so
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