In it’s never ending pursuit of political advantage over the Conservatives. The Democrat Party is attempting to resurrect the Fairness Doctrine to stymie conservative talk radio after the dismal failure of liberal networks such as Air America. Sign the petition below to register your dissatisfaction with the “Vast Left Wing Conspiracy”, heh.
From The Orange County (California) Register:
Whenever the government wants to regulate anything, let alone anything as precious as free speech, beware. And be particularly concerned whenever the government describes its motive as an attempt at “fairness.”
Although the Fairness Doctrine was abandoned in 1987 by the Reagan administration, the suggestion that authoritarian control be reinstituted over broadcast speech recently moved from the fringe of political zealots and was taken up by senior Washington Democrats, including our own Sen. Dianne Feinstein, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and others, including former presidential candidate John Kerry.
Some liberal politicians are irked by the popularity of conservative radio talk shows. And the failure of left-leaning programming, such as Air America Radio, to gain a significant following no doubt exacerbates their frustration. These factors may have moved Sen. Feinstein to complain June 24 on Fox News, according to Broadcasting & Cable Magazine, that talk radio is one-sided and “explosive … [I]t pushes people, I think, to extreme views without a lot of information.” …
The Fairness Doctrine was intended to balance political speech on the airwaves, growing out “of concern that because of the large number of applications for radio stations being submitted [in the 1930s and '40s]and the limited number of frequencies available, broadcasters should make sure they did not use their stations simply as advocates with a singular perspective,” according to the Museum of Broadcast Communications. “Rather, they must allow all points of view. That requirement was to be enforced by FCC mandate.”
But such an altruistic motive is as futile as it is dangerous; don’t confuse the goal with what actually happened. How much of what is said is enough? How many sides are there to an argument? Must a conservative talk host have a liberal co-host? Do radio callers who disagree with talk show hosts count as “the other side?” Must every station with four conservative talk shows add four liberal talk shows? Who decides?
