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"Fairness" Doctrine Here's a great op-ed piece about the "Fairness" Doctrine that would put talk radio (uhh...excuse me, HATE radio) out of business.
Nearly as frustrating, however, has been the imperial reaction of elected officials to their citizen uprising. Apparently, democracy is a drag - but it's nothing a little authoritarian censorship can't fix. Enter the Fairness Doctrine, which has captured the fancy of top Democrats - including Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who announced that she is "looking into" reviving it to target talk radio. The docrine, abandoned by the Federal Communications Commission in 1987, used to compel broadcast licensees - that is, radio and TV stations - to give equal time to both sides of controversial issues. The FCC dropped it after concluding it actually discouraged informed discussion. Many Democrats joined Republicans in the House last Thursday to support a bill that would bar the doctrine's revival - but the number of high-profile Democrats touting it as a "fix" remains troubling. Conservatives long ago adapted to life in a world where watching the network news or picking up one of the major news dailies is a virtual guarantee of having their views mocked, demeaned or misrepresented. If you're a social conservative, multiply the odds by 100. But some liberals, unused to feeling such stings, view government intervention as a salve. "It's time to reinstitute the Fairness Doctrine," said Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.). "I have this old-fashioned attitude that when Americans hear both sides of the story, they're in a better position to make a decision." Except in The New York Times, only one of whose eight op-ed columnists calls himself a conservative. Liberals claim they just want "fairness" - but if that were so, they wouldn't limit their concern just to talk radio, the one area where they've been shut out (by their own incompetence, mind you - Air America, the liberal talk-radio network, was a complete fiasco). They aren't concerned that Americans "get both sides of the story" on abortion or embryonic-stem-cell research or abstinence training. They weren't concerned about "fairness" when Katie Couric blamed evangelicals for the death of Matthew Shepherd. They protest that the airwaves belong to the American people. They're right - which is all the more reason to keep grubby government mitts off of them. And if we're going to start dictating media content for the good of the proletariat, then there's no reason to stop with radio. (As Fox's Sean Hannity joked last week, "OK, then we want the 'no sex before marriage' channel to balance out MTV.") In calling for the restoration of the Fairness Doctrine, Senate Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada called conservative talk radio the "generators of simplicity." Presumably this differs from the high-minded debate that occurred over at Air America, where Randi Rhodes liked to say that "Satan is Bush's campaign manager" and routinely claim (why was unclear) that the Bush administration was full of repressed homosexuals. And if talk radio is so simpleminded that it needs government manhandling, then the rest of the media needs it even more: A 2006 Pew Research survey found that Rush Limbaugh's listeners were the second-most-informed audience (after readers of political magazines) - ahead of NPR and the Daily Show. Generic talk radio ranked ahead of the PBS NewsHour, CNN and daily newspapers. Back on planet Earth, people know that we live in a world that has more outlets and opportunities for opinions to be heard than at any time in history. Democratic leaders must know it, too - since they cower in fear from the vitriol and threats of a liberal blogosphere that easily rivals conservative talk radio in its ability to influence elected officials. The FCC's old justification for government-enforced "equal time" was a "scarcity rationale" - a claim that there were so few outlets that the government had a right to regulate content. It smacked of authoritarianism then, and it still does today. It was also ineffective and counterproductive. The famous 1960 Nixon/Kennedy debate didn't occur until Congress suspended the equal-time rule that year. The next several elections passed without presidential debates because the networks, hamstrung by the equal-time mandate, didn't want to turn over valuable air time to minor candidates. If liberals want to provide balance in talk radio, they need to stop maligning it - and figure out how to compete on it. Notice I didn't give the author or a link? There's a reason for that. I'm sorry for the long "cut & paste" (countdown to Basmati yelling at me So who wrote this? Michelle Malkin? Robert Novak? Cal Thomas? Thomas Sewell? No, actually, it's from a liberal -- Kirsten Powers. Can one of the two moderate liberals here argue with Ms. Power's points? Is she wrong on anything? I don't always agree with her, but I do respect Ms. Powers because she is reasonable and isn't always ideologically blinded to the Democrat's faults. pentapenguin's blog | login to post comments
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), but I wanted everybody to read this piece bias-free as possible without knowing the who the author is. That way you can't automatically discount her or his opinions. 