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To: secretagent
I failed to address your main point: the fedgov promotes one way communication with its licensing of broadcast spectra.

I 've read that it currently does this for free, so I proposed the auction of renewals to at least get something back for the citizens.

But as for the one way communication, I don't have a clear solution I like. Anti-trust limitations, one share per citizen, no licensing at all and let anarchy prevail...different solutions, but none of them grab me.

One of the things I dislike least is the idea of requiring a one-week tape delay for everything except the weather, traffic, and sports reports. And, of course, legal authorities in response to a public-safety crisis such as major storm threat or civil unrest.

That would, at least, take away the advantage of broadcast speed from journalism. The problem with journalism is its rush to judgement, and its implicit excuse-making for the fact that its hip-shots are so consistently wrong. And that the government de facto (de jure, in McCain-Feingold) backs its claims of objectivity.

My delay would reduce broadcast journalism to a newsweekly format. But then, Time and Newsweek are no bargain, so it might be of marginal benefit . . .

If there were some way of making the journalists take randomly selected listener calls, that would inject talk-radio sanity into the equation, just like C-Span used to have before it started rationing the sane callers in favor of liberals and "moderates." But journalists are hit-and-run artists, generally.


22 posted on 08/04/2002 6:43:23 AM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion
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To: conservatism_IS_compassion; Alan Chapman
Interesting, your idea of a tape delay, but I fear it would lead to even more homogenization. At least in the hit-and-run of current broadcasting they don't have as much time to compare notes.

We can get more objectivity out of the system by figuring out how to get more competition from its components - the different owners of radio and tv stations. Hence my mentioning anti-trust action.

Perhaps it would help if we said no individual, corporate or human, could own more than one tv or radio station.





23 posted on 08/04/2002 8:27:48 AM PDT by secretagent
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