Operation: Solvo Sermo – Stop the Fairness Doctrine
February 16, 2009 at 10:39 am
by: Allison Bricker
Once again, current and former hack politicians are calling for a reinstatement of the “Fairness Doctrine,” or in short and contrary what the title advertises, censorship. Joining the plutocrats in their chorus call for a government mandate, are many of the failed or failing “progressive” talk radio hosts, ergo Bill Press.
Every time Mr. Press gets the chance, he whines incessantly about how unfair it is that radio stations are dropping “socialist” talk radio in favor of another format. One recent victim of the pathetically low ratings in the “socialist” talk radio graveyard is Obama 1260 AM out of Washington D.C. As of February 9th, less than four months since its birth as a progressive bastion of all things Obama, the station had such pitiful ratings, WWRC decided to drop the format and focus on the imploding economy instead.
However, Mr. Press seems more concerned with the loss of his own salary than actually trying to develop a working business model. He has literally begged Senators Harkin (D-IA) and Stabenow (D-MI) to have government grant him job protection vis-à-vis the “Fairness Doctrine”, as his ilk’s brand of talk radio hemorrhages affiliates around the country.
Unfortunately, for Mr. Press however, it was recently revealed that Senator Stabenow’s husband; one of the biggest supporters of progressive talk in the Senate” according to Mr. Press, is the “Father of Progressive talk,” former Vice-President of the bankrupted Air America, and remains a top level executive in the television/internet industry.
As recently as last week, even President Clinton jumped on the bandwagon calling for a reinstatement of the Federal censorship policy. Additionally, recently confirmed Attorney General, Eric Holder has publicly commented upon expanding the reach of the “Fairness Doctrine” to the internet.
Thus, we present Phase One of Operation: Solvo Sermo, Stop the Fairness Doctrine. Please stay tuned to The Smoking Argus Daily, as we get ready to launch Phase Two in the coming weeks.
February 16th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
I don’t see the point. How is the Fairness Doctrine unfair? What exactly does it censor? To avoid begging the question, some support should be given to this fundamental premise. What possible threat does a wide, even cacophonous diversity of opinion pose to anyone?–and why must ideas attract advertising dollars and ratings to be considered worth our attention? My understanding, perhaps outdated after the 1988 Communications Act or the advent of satellite radio, is that radio stations lease the airwaves from the American public, so it does not strike me as wrong that they be used to provide the public with diverse opinion on matters of public importance–not just to sell beer. Especially now, with control of mainstream media falling into fewer hands, something like the Fairness Doctrine could be useful–which, in its old guise, allowed every crackpot with the gumption to demand it, 5-10 minutes of airtime to respond to perceived biases in the official news–hardly censorship as I understand it. After the 1988 Act–and with the advent of cable TV–public access television and radio has declined, replaced by infomercials … and talk shows (like Springer, Stern, et al., God bless em) that tend to marginalize public debate by making it the equivalent of freak shows. Many current talk shows–namely Limbaugh–dispense with input from callers altogether. A free, functioning democracy thrives on diversity of opinion–even unpopular opinion. Admittedly, socialists could always turn back to distributing mimeographed pamphlets on street corners–but with capitalists controlling the electronic mass media–and now the fattest capitalists having swallowed whole the skinnier capitalists–the range of discourse is alarmingly narrow (except for the Internet, whose private niche forums seem inadequate in promoting wide-ranging and free-wheeling discussions across the spectrum of the population). I too used to ridicule the geeks who pushed their way onto local TV stations to voice their homespun, often shrill responses to mainstream truisms. But now I miss them–especially with the incessant squall of 24-hr “news” on Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC, which dispense tendentious and largely homogenized viewpoint and opinion like so many Big Macs.
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February 16th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
Joe, my fundamental problem with the fairness doctrine is that it presumes government knows what is and what is not fair.
Secondly, I do not buy into the bologna that some how the airwaves are public domain and thus require licenses to use said “public” airwaves. It is a scam solely of monopolists and oligarchs designed to raise the barriers to entry thereby limiting the diversity of opinion while claiming to foster it.
The specific frequency a station broadcasts on is no more public than SmArgus.com
The system of registering domain name exclusivity has worked well to avoid conflicting ownership, and it is my ferverent belief that radio frequencies could find a similar solution as well.
Thus, if I go out and purchase a plot of land with my money….Hire some people to build a transmitter…and purchase an antennae, then please tell me how I do not have the right to recoup my capital expense with advertisers of my choosing and voices which reflect my personal taste?
Moreover look at the first amendment. If we think media concentration is in warp drive now, what percentage of the people during the Revolutionary and colonial periods owned the a printing press.
The answer is, very few, yet the Founding Generation knew specifically that keeping government mandates and censorship out of the public discourse was so vital that they specifically restricted the government from interfering with the only form of mass communication at the time; newspapers.
It has yet to be successfully proven to me, that had the internet, radio, and television existed back then, that the Founders would have not protected them as well as newspapers.
Let alone that the largely still unregulated internet has allowed for the creation of a literal garden of opinions, all without government mandates of equal time or forced listenership.
Additionally, my personal taste is for a wide range of opinions which I hope is reflected by the varied contributors to SmArgus.
However, I will be damned before I would be forced by power of law to provide a “pro-torture” or “pro-war” point of view on this blog vis-a-vis the Fairness Doctrine or any other regulatory measure.
Finally, let us make this clear, anyone who takes public tax Dollars to save their failed business scheme is not even closely related to a Capitalist, they are corporatists, entwined with government which throughout history, has led to the largest erosions of liberty, ergo fascism.
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