The debate will continue to rage, sparked most recently by the publication of a report, The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio, by the Center for American Progress, a Liberal group headed by John Podesta, President Clinton's former Chief of Staff. The report argues for equal time by increasing the regulatory hurdles for multiple station ownership.
"There are many potential explanations for why this gap exists. The two most frequently cited reasons are the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987 and simple consumer demand. As this report will detail, neither of these reasons adequately explains why conservative talk radio dominates the airwaves.
Our conclusion is that the gap between conservative and progressive talk radio is the result of multiple structural problems in the U.S. regulatory system, particularly the complete breakdown of the public trustee concept of broadcast, the elimination of clear public interest requirements for broadcasting, and the relaxation of ownership rules including the requirement of local participation in management."
Said another way, the report wants increased government regulation to reduce the concentration of station ownership to curb the success of Conservative talk radio. Liberal Congressional leaders, e.g., Senator Feinstein, Sanders, Representative Pelosi and others have begun beating the drum to silence their critics on talk radio. It can't be plainer than that. They want to regulate free speech and have another go-round on the issue because Liberals have failed to compete in talk radio, witness the colossal failure of Air America. Is it the jejune nature of Liberal talk radio that fails to interest people?
I see this attempt as a warm up to the 2008 elections to create an issue for the Liberals to attack the Conservatives, particularly Conservative talk radio. The liberals must believe that the word 'fairness' will attract many in the public to their side of the debate. I think their strategy will ultimately fail because this issue inevitable will wind up in the Supreme Court which has already indicated that free speech, particularly political speech should be allowed. Nevertheless, the Liberals feel they have an issue with some traction and clearly intend to make life difficult for their opponents by putting them on the defensive. They certainly have the attention of Conservatives. Check out this piece.
4 comments:
This touches upon a very difficult issue: do we tolerate the intolerant? The danger with the extreme right - and it's a bizarre marriage of evangelical dominionists and private, corporate interests - is that they use the freedoms of a free society in order to slowly chip away at those very freedoms. The Nazis did it in an obvious way. Now it's being attempted in a more subtle manner, in the name of religion, patriotism and security. This movement uses words such as "freedom", "liberty" and "respect". But the way they mean it, those words actually have meanings contrary to their traditional definitions.
They have already succeeded in obtaining billions of dollars for "faith based initiatives" - a way to insert the church into government funded social jurisdiction. Some results include confining sex education to the teaching of abstinance. If the resultant increase in unwanted pregnancies and STD's doesn't sound particularly appealing for our own communities, think of the results in 3rd world countries where the U.S., because of religion, has halted the distribution of condoms and proper sex education. In places such as Africa, the result will be the death of millions.
How does one fight such a movement? I don't have the answers, other than to point out that we must remain vigilant to safeguard our traditional liberal values - most especially, to ensure that religion is kept in the private realm (seperation of church and state). Only in this way can we ensure that the U.S. does not transform into a fascist theocracy, while at the same time safeguarding the religious beliefs of all individuals.
-Dan
The free flow or ideas, viewpoints and values lies at the heart of our liberal democratic republic. This free flow, however, does not include all speech. If government unduly interferes with this fundamental right of free speech, whether it takes the form of soapboxes in the public square or publishing in its many forms, then we lose some of what defines us.
Having said that, I don't pretend to know the delicate balance that must exist between different points of view.
What I do know is that I have a right not to listen, read or watch and we all have the right to object to speech that may be severely injurious to our country and way of life.
We must be very cautious not to enable government to manage or control the marketplace of ideas.
Left and right wing political extremists should be able to speak, but we have the right to counter their speech and do what it may take to drown them out. That is not a role I want government to take on because it belongs to us individually and as freely associated groups. The fact that the 'airwaves' (electromagnetic spectrum) is a public resource no longer is a basis for arguing the 'fairness doctrine,' certainly not in the Internet age and when government has chosen to auction frequencies to the private sector for enormous sums.
Consequently, I would not support a government imposed 'fairness doctrine' that targets certain media types, styles, delivery methods or venues.
Here's what Justice Sam Alito had to say. I agree
"Justice Alito discussed the challenges facing the court today, including the dangers of limiting free speech. “I'm a very strong believer in the First Amendment and the right of people to speak and to write… I would be reluctant to support restrictions on what people could say,” Alito said in response to a question involving speech limitations on the Internet. But he quickly followed, "some restrictions have been held to be consistent with the First Amendment, but it's very dangerous for the government to restrict speech."
I think I agree with Dave's comments. Seems to me that it's not regulating speech that will safe-guard our liberal democracies, but rather vigilance to ensure that laws are not slowly changed here and there until one day we find ourselves living in a nation without freedom.
The problem is in ensuring that our freedoms are not exploited by those who would destroy said freedoms.
I wish that there were an easy formula to do that, but it takes an educated public to speak out on the important issues. Unfortunately, things don't always seem so optamistic in that regards.
-dan
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