The left takes aim at the radio waves
Make no bones about it, the Democrats HATE talk radio. They’ve tried it many times and like the recent Air America bomb, they simply cannot seem to gather much of an audience. So what might their next move be seeing as they simply cannot find a way to compete with the conservative radio juggernaut?
The resurrection of “The FAIRNESS Doctrine”!
Former failed Democratic Presidential Candidate and Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) will be heading up a new committee that among other things will focus on issues directly regarding the FCC.
In his speech, Kucinich stated, “We know the media has become the servant of a very narrow corporate agenda. We are now in a position to move a progressive agenda to where it is visible.”
If you read that for what it is worth, the Democrats were basically pushed out of power when talk radio as we now know it today took to the air to push the “Contract with America” and succeeded. Now that they have both houses of Congress back in their hands they know of only one way to push their agenda on the radio and it has nothing to do with a free market.
In a free world, one can say what he wants, and not worry about having to be “fair” to anyone with an opposing viewpoint. In a free market, demand sets the tone for what people want to consume. In this case, radio content. If you put a conservative radio program on one station and a liberal program on another and 95% of those listening to the radio tune into one of the two then demand has put the loser out of business.
That’s how reality works.
Welcome to the world of FAIR… also known as a Democrat’s reality.
Radio station A presents a purely conservative opinion, station B is completely liberal in all it says and does. Demand ends up putting station B out of business so to keep things FAIR for those listening, a policy is passed that makes it an enforceable offense by the FCC (i.e. loss of broadcast license) if an ‘unfair’ advantage is given to one side over another. Thus, station A is required to present any political or possibly controversial information with equal and ‘fair’ time to BOTH sides of the information.
In the reality of the US Constitution, we have the ability to say what we want, when we want without being forced to be fair to anyone.
FCC Commissioner Michael Copps also spoke at the event and had this to say about our current ‘entertainment’, “too little news, too much baloney passed off as news. Too little quality entertainment, too many people eating bugs on reality TV. Too little local and regional music, too much brain-numbing national play-lists.”
Apparently people on the left have a problem with figuring out the difference between NEWS, and Opinion Journalism.
Sean Hannity, Neal Boortz, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, etc… are NOT news broadcasters, they present their opinions on the news. Simply because you do not agree with their opinions does not mean that you get to censor what they say.
For more on the “Fairness Doctrine” check out the detailed summary on the Museum of Broadcast Communications.
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Comments
Leila,
The Democrats haven’t been about free speech since the advent of campaign finance reform in the 1970’s and the subsequently schizophrenic ruling in Buckley v Valeo which not only upheld certain campaign finance restrictions but also created the two-tiered system we have today where contributions are limited but candidates have no limits on what they can spend.
Haven’t been in the States for six months now. Nice to know nothing’s changed! Bad to know it, too.
I really will never understand how people think the Democrats support freedom and freedom of speech, etc. I don’t really think the main Republicans out there do much either, anymore, but God, the Dems are so unabashed about it!