In All Fairness, this Doctrine Sucks
You may or may not like Rush Limbaugh. Frankly, I don't care ( I find him reasonably entertaining, but for my noon-to-three listening, I'm partial to The Wilkow Majority,, on Sirius). It's irrelevant. It doesn't matter whether you like his program, or any other talk radio program, or whether you're a confirmed "dittohead" or a liberal drone or a Hell-fire-and-brimstone religious nut or a rabid-&-foaming-at-the-mouth leftist. The recent whisperings from D.C. about governmental restrictions being placed in talk radio (conservative talk radio, specifically) should have every hair on your corpse standing on edge and be raising every red flag you can think of. Freedom of speech, and especially political discourse, is something everyone has a stake in and needs to take seriously (as obviously you do: if you dug deep enough into the internet to find this page, you must take it really seriously).
In particular, there are two areas that should be of great interest to everyone who values their freedom to run their mouth: recent statements from the White House and Senate Republicans concerning opposition to the new amnesty...uh...er...I mean "comprehensive immigration bill" being run, as I write this, through the US Senate for the second time (it failed narrowly on the first). The other being calls both expressed and implied for a revival of an old set of FCC regulations known as the "Fairness Doctrine."
On the first matter:
For those of you who are reclusive shut-ins who have absolutely no contact whatsoever with the outside world, we here in the good ol' US of A seem to have a bit of a problem controlling our southern border. The problem is real simple: we don't. Not "we can't," we simply don't. Or perhaps more accurately, an alarmingly large segment of the US government seems absolutely hellbent on not doing so, and on making sure no one else does either. This problem is far from new, but public outcry over it has grown substantially over the last few years, and especially in the now nearly six years since the 11th. The reasons for this outcry are as varied as the people it comes from. I could spend days listing and writing columns about them, and likely will, since it is certainly one of my hot-button issues. But I doubt I would tell you anything you haven't already heard or just figured out for yourself. For the sake of brevity, I'll skip that part and keep going.
Anyway, President Bush sponsored what he called an immigration bill that sent the base of the Republican party into an uproar. While he went to great lengths to insist that the bill did not extend amnesty to any and all of the 12-20 million illegal aliens currently in the US, it did, for all practical purposes, just that. It was an overall lousy bill (again, we'll get into that next time). Senators were overwhelmed by the amount of negative feed back they received from their constituents. Enough Senators to bring about the bill's defeat. This was due, in no small part, to bloggers on the internet, and the myriad of voices, mostly conservative, on talk radio. These brought to light many specifics of this bill, such as its lenient and ultimately toothless requirement for IAs to pay a fine (but with no real method in place to enforce it), and return home, then come back legally (which as I understand is the law right now, and they're not enforcing it, either), among other things.
The Republican party in D.C. finally found something over which Rush Limbaugh would get right in their faces. Along with Sean Hannity, G. Gordon Liddy, Laura Ingraham, Bill O'Reilly, Andrew Wilkow, and virtually everyone else on the right-wing side of your AM dial. To make matters worse for them, there was the blogosphere, populated in part by people who actually have enough time on their hands to actually read and analyze the entire 400 page bill, then post what they found where everyone from Glenn Beck to Joe Sixpack could find it.
Now on a normal day, Bush is a pantywaist (or perhaps a waste of panties?) who lacks the spine to actually stand up to Congress and fight for anything. But this of all bills has inspired him to push ever on. The bill is again before the Senate, and it's backers on both sides of the aisle have had some interesting words for those whom they perceive to have caused their prior defeat.
It started with Bush making false characterizations about conservative opponents to the bill, saying we were "trying to frighten people into opposing the bill." This is a tried and true page out of the liberal/Democrat playbook: when your position is indefensible, impugn the motives and/or character of your opponent in order to deflect attention from it. It raised eyebrows, and ire, among conservatives, who are after all the reason this putz is in office in the first place.
It got worse about a week ago, when one of the bill's proponents, Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS) stated in a television interview that the bill went down to defeat because "Talk radio is running America. We have to deal with that problem."
A red flag rises.
He also went on to say: "I'm sure senators on both sides of the aisle are being pounded by these talk radio people who don't even know what's in the bill" and claimed in a later interview with Fox News's Mike Wallace that during a radio interview on a local station in Mississippi, the host asked him to name four things in this bill that you think are significantly better than the current law. Lott responded:
"So I ticked them off. He said, 'That's in there?' I said, "Yeah.""
I for one find it interesting that he neglected to mention exactly which station that was on, which host issued him that challenge, and just exactly what those four things were. Hmmm.
For the better part of the twentieth century, The FD was a part of FCC regulations. It was repealed by the commission in a unanimous vote in 1987. In a nutshell, it required that anytime a given viewpoint on a controversial subject was aired over broadcast media, that the opposing viewpoint must be given immediate equal time. Sounds nice and fuzzy on paper, but causes a few problems when put into practice. A broadcast station is a business, not a community service project. In the case of AM radio, the entire listening base is a mixture of niche markets that have to catered to individually in order to maintain ratings and profitability. The Howard Stern audience is not the Dennis Prager audience is not the Art Bell audience is not the NPR audience. If the Fairness doctrine were applied fairly (which I doubt is now or ever was the idea), anytime a shock jock made a statement about politics or abortion or any other controversial issue, the station would have to give equal time to a Bible thumper or alike so he could say the exact opposite. The shock jock's audience would likely lose interest and tune out. The same goes in reverse. This would make it difficult and unprofitable for a station to take on hosts or programs which deal in controversial issues at all. And that would be the death of political talk radio.
On the left side of the dial, it really wouldn't matter much. To date, liberal talk radio on a national scale has been at best marginally successful. More often it's been an abysmal failure. Jim Hightower, Mario Cuomo, and various other would be "Limbaughs of the left" washed out as quickly as they started, and that's despite being given heaps of free publicity and glowing commentary from major left-leaning publications like the New York Times and the Washington Post. Air America flopped so quick that most people don't know it's still around, and that's if you can find someone who ever heard of it in the first place. But on the right, where the economic success of the industry has been thus far, the effects would be drastic. Ultimately the FD could, and likely would, be used to make the medium unprofitable, and thereby coerce stations into dropping political programs, effectively stifling discussion of said topics.
"But Whiskey!" you might protest, "I don't give a rat's furry ass about conservative radio! I think you, and all of your right wing ilk are nothing but a bunch of facist, hatemongering bigots, and probably eat puppies! Talk radio is completely one sided! Why shouldn't the government make them tell my side of the story?"
Glad you asked.
First, please note that the first ammendment to the US constitution guarantees us all the freedom of speech. More accurately, it specifically prohibits congress from passing any laws restricting it, and makes the exact same provision for the public media (freedom of the press). Forcing someone to say or give voice to something they do not wish to is every bit as much a violation of this freedom as preventing someone from saying or giving voice to something they do. Thereby, this "doctrine" flies right in the face of our cherished first amendment.
Second, make no mistake: if the government can do this to the likes of Michael Savage or Bill Bennett, they can do it to you. This could be really handy for them, for instance the next time we get into an unpopular war in some funny little country you've never heard of. Remember that the Vietnam war was started, and escalated for five years by two Democrat presidents, each with a Democrat congress backing them up. This game ain't just for W., folks.
Third, there's really nothing that says this has to stop at the radio. Right now, you and I are engaging in the very political discourse which is at stake here, only we're doing it online instead of over the airwaves. Bloggers and the internet are playing an ever increasing role in shaping the viewpoints of the voting public, both right and left, and it's only going to get bigger. This could potentially be a greater threat to incumbancy than cum stains on a blue dress. There is of course no way I could feasibly present a viewpoint other than my own on my own blog, but a hefty fine from Uncle Sam for not doing so might cause me to reconsider just how important these columns are (which I guess would be very much, if someone were actually to go to those lengths to shut them down). Ever since the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Act, which is to date the biggest infringement of political speech tolerated by the American people since the civil war, there have been people in our government calling for extending the CFRA's TV and radio advertising and endorsement regulations to bloggers and internet based media as well. This would prevent us from writing about candidates during election seasons, urging people to for or against any particular candidate, etc..
Lastly, while the first amendment does guarantee your right to free speech, it does not guarantee you an audience. You have to acquire that on your own. Conservative talk radio is where it is today because there is a market for it, plain and simple. If there is a market for liberal talk radio, no one's figured out where it is or devised the business model and show format that will attract it yet. If someone does, more power to them. They'll be prosperous in the industry, and with my sincerest congratulations. Probably Limbaugh's as well.
In particular, there are two areas that should be of great interest to everyone who values their freedom to run their mouth: recent statements from the White House and Senate Republicans concerning opposition to the new amnesty...uh...er...I mean "comprehensive immigration bill" being run, as I write this, through the US Senate for the second time (it failed narrowly on the first). The other being calls both expressed and implied for a revival of an old set of FCC regulations known as the "Fairness Doctrine."
On the first matter:
For those of you who are reclusive shut-ins who have absolutely no contact whatsoever with the outside world, we here in the good ol' US of A seem to have a bit of a problem controlling our southern border. The problem is real simple: we don't. Not "we can't," we simply don't. Or perhaps more accurately, an alarmingly large segment of the US government seems absolutely hellbent on not doing so, and on making sure no one else does either. This problem is far from new, but public outcry over it has grown substantially over the last few years, and especially in the now nearly six years since the 11th. The reasons for this outcry are as varied as the people it comes from. I could spend days listing and writing columns about them, and likely will, since it is certainly one of my hot-button issues. But I doubt I would tell you anything you haven't already heard or just figured out for yourself. For the sake of brevity, I'll skip that part and keep going.
Anyway, President Bush sponsored what he called an immigration bill that sent the base of the Republican party into an uproar. While he went to great lengths to insist that the bill did not extend amnesty to any and all of the 12-20 million illegal aliens currently in the US, it did, for all practical purposes, just that. It was an overall lousy bill (again, we'll get into that next time). Senators were overwhelmed by the amount of negative feed back they received from their constituents. Enough Senators to bring about the bill's defeat. This was due, in no small part, to bloggers on the internet, and the myriad of voices, mostly conservative, on talk radio. These brought to light many specifics of this bill, such as its lenient and ultimately toothless requirement for IAs to pay a fine (but with no real method in place to enforce it), and return home, then come back legally (which as I understand is the law right now, and they're not enforcing it, either), among other things.
The Republican party in D.C. finally found something over which Rush Limbaugh would get right in their faces. Along with Sean Hannity, G. Gordon Liddy, Laura Ingraham, Bill O'Reilly, Andrew Wilkow, and virtually everyone else on the right-wing side of your AM dial. To make matters worse for them, there was the blogosphere, populated in part by people who actually have enough time on their hands to actually read and analyze the entire 400 page bill, then post what they found where everyone from Glenn Beck to Joe Sixpack could find it.
Now on a normal day, Bush is a pantywaist (or perhaps a waste of panties?) who lacks the spine to actually stand up to Congress and fight for anything. But this of all bills has inspired him to push ever on. The bill is again before the Senate, and it's backers on both sides of the aisle have had some interesting words for those whom they perceive to have caused their prior defeat.
It started with Bush making false characterizations about conservative opponents to the bill, saying we were "trying to frighten people into opposing the bill." This is a tried and true page out of the liberal/Democrat playbook: when your position is indefensible, impugn the motives and/or character of your opponent in order to deflect attention from it. It raised eyebrows, and ire, among conservatives, who are after all the reason this putz is in office in the first place.
It got worse about a week ago, when one of the bill's proponents, Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS) stated in a television interview that the bill went down to defeat because "Talk radio is running America. We have to deal with that problem."
A red flag rises.
He also went on to say: "I'm sure senators on both sides of the aisle are being pounded by these talk radio people who don't even know what's in the bill" and claimed in a later interview with Fox News's Mike Wallace that during a radio interview on a local station in Mississippi, the host asked him to name four things in this bill that you think are significantly better than the current law. Lott responded:
"So I ticked them off. He said, 'That's in there?' I said, "Yeah.""
I for one find it interesting that he neglected to mention exactly which station that was on, which host issued him that challenge, and just exactly what those four things were. Hmmm.
And that brings us to matter number two. The Wallace interview also featured Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) who after several minutes of Lott vainly trying to spin his previous comments as something they weren't, took it one step further and talked about reviving the Fairness Doctrine.
For the better part of the twentieth century, The FD was a part of FCC regulations. It was repealed by the commission in a unanimous vote in 1987. In a nutshell, it required that anytime a given viewpoint on a controversial subject was aired over broadcast media, that the opposing viewpoint must be given immediate equal time. Sounds nice and fuzzy on paper, but causes a few problems when put into practice. A broadcast station is a business, not a community service project. In the case of AM radio, the entire listening base is a mixture of niche markets that have to catered to individually in order to maintain ratings and profitability. The Howard Stern audience is not the Dennis Prager audience is not the Art Bell audience is not the NPR audience. If the Fairness doctrine were applied fairly (which I doubt is now or ever was the idea), anytime a shock jock made a statement about politics or abortion or any other controversial issue, the station would have to give equal time to a Bible thumper or alike so he could say the exact opposite. The shock jock's audience would likely lose interest and tune out. The same goes in reverse. This would make it difficult and unprofitable for a station to take on hosts or programs which deal in controversial issues at all. And that would be the death of political talk radio.
On the left side of the dial, it really wouldn't matter much. To date, liberal talk radio on a national scale has been at best marginally successful. More often it's been an abysmal failure. Jim Hightower, Mario Cuomo, and various other would be "Limbaughs of the left" washed out as quickly as they started, and that's despite being given heaps of free publicity and glowing commentary from major left-leaning publications like the New York Times and the Washington Post. Air America flopped so quick that most people don't know it's still around, and that's if you can find someone who ever heard of it in the first place. But on the right, where the economic success of the industry has been thus far, the effects would be drastic. Ultimately the FD could, and likely would, be used to make the medium unprofitable, and thereby coerce stations into dropping political programs, effectively stifling discussion of said topics.
Gee, you don't suppose that could be the whole point do you? You don't suppose that our elected officials would ever stoop to using government force to silence public debate about the very things they're doing in that big gleaming building at the corner of Capitol and Capitol, do you? Especially on matters where they seem to be at odds with the interests of most of the nation?
"But Whiskey!" you might protest, "I don't give a rat's furry ass about conservative radio! I think you, and all of your right wing ilk are nothing but a bunch of facist, hatemongering bigots, and probably eat puppies! Talk radio is completely one sided! Why shouldn't the government make them tell my side of the story?"
Glad you asked.
First, please note that the first ammendment to the US constitution guarantees us all the freedom of speech. More accurately, it specifically prohibits congress from passing any laws restricting it, and makes the exact same provision for the public media (freedom of the press). Forcing someone to say or give voice to something they do not wish to is every bit as much a violation of this freedom as preventing someone from saying or giving voice to something they do. Thereby, this "doctrine" flies right in the face of our cherished first amendment.
Second, make no mistake: if the government can do this to the likes of Michael Savage or Bill Bennett, they can do it to you. This could be really handy for them, for instance the next time we get into an unpopular war in some funny little country you've never heard of. Remember that the Vietnam war was started, and escalated for five years by two Democrat presidents, each with a Democrat congress backing them up. This game ain't just for W., folks.
Third, there's really nothing that says this has to stop at the radio. Right now, you and I are engaging in the very political discourse which is at stake here, only we're doing it online instead of over the airwaves. Bloggers and the internet are playing an ever increasing role in shaping the viewpoints of the voting public, both right and left, and it's only going to get bigger. This could potentially be a greater threat to incumbancy than cum stains on a blue dress. There is of course no way I could feasibly present a viewpoint other than my own on my own blog, but a hefty fine from Uncle Sam for not doing so might cause me to reconsider just how important these columns are (which I guess would be very much, if someone were actually to go to those lengths to shut them down). Ever since the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Act, which is to date the biggest infringement of political speech tolerated by the American people since the civil war, there have been people in our government calling for extending the CFRA's TV and radio advertising and endorsement regulations to bloggers and internet based media as well. This would prevent us from writing about candidates during election seasons, urging people to for or against any particular candidate, etc..
Lastly, while the first amendment does guarantee your right to free speech, it does not guarantee you an audience. You have to acquire that on your own. Conservative talk radio is where it is today because there is a market for it, plain and simple. If there is a market for liberal talk radio, no one's figured out where it is or devised the business model and show format that will attract it yet. If someone does, more power to them. They'll be prosperous in the industry, and with my sincerest congratulations. Probably Limbaugh's as well.
posted by Big Whiskey Sam at 19:49
0 comments
