The speaker of the House made it clear to me and more than forty of my colleagues yesterday that a bill by Rep. Mike Pence (R.-Ind.) to outlaw the \u201cFairness Doctrine\u201d (which a liberal administration could use to silence Rush Limbaugh, other radio talk show hosts and much of the new alternative media) would not see the light of day in Congress during \u201908. In ruling out a vote on Pence\u2019s proposed Broadcaster’s Freedom Act, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D.-CA.) also signaled her strong support for revival of the \u201cFairness Doctrine\u201d — which would require radio station owners to provide equal time to radio commentary when it is requested.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
And that?\u00a0 That was the good <\/em>news!<\/p>\n\u201cDo you personally support revival of the \u2018Fairness Doctrine?\u2019\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes,\u201d the speaker replied, without hesitation<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Let’s dispense with a myth here:\u00a0 “The Fairness Doctrine” is about making the public airwaves public again”: Oh, goody.\u00a0 Then we’ll also bring federal sanctions against the imbalances in the print media?\u00a0 Academia (especially public <\/em>academia)?<\/p>\nIt’s a simple lie:<\/p>\n
Experts say that the \u201cFairness Doctrine,\u201d which was ended under the Reagan Administration, would put a major burden on small radio stations in providing equal time to Rush Limbaugh and other conservative broadcasters, who are a potent political force. Rather than engage in the costly practice of providing that time, the experts conclude, many stations would simply not carry Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and other talk show hosts who are likely to generate demands for equal time.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Let’s remember a couple of things:<\/p>\n
\n- Limbaugh, Hannity, Hewitt, Ingraham, Medved, Bennett and Savage are free<\/em> to radio stations.\u00a0 No radio station pays a nickel to carry their programs.<\/li>\n
- If\u00a0 they are forced\u00a0 by law to “balance”\u00a0 the likes of Limbaugh and company, most stations will do what they did before 1987:\u00a0 punt.\u00a0 They’ll avoid politics altogether; they’ll broadcast the bland teleshrink or blander, crypto-liberal MPR-Lite pap like Owen Span and Larry King.\u00a0 Or they’ll pick up on the biggest trend in talk radio in 1985-86 – “Brokered Talk”, selling airtime to real estate agents and investment advisors and nutrition supplement dealers.\u00a0 That’s the way talk was headed up until the Fairness Doctrine was repealed.<\/li>\n
- Or they can look for successful free “liberal” talk to fill out their requirements under the Fairness Doctrine.Um, yeah.\u00a0 Good luck with that.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
This is a coup against the First Amendment.\u00a0 There is no other explanation.<\/p>\n
(Which isn’t to say that I don’t want my left-of-center readers to try to provide one.\u00a0 Expect a spirited response).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Can’t shut ’em up with reason, or in the marketplace? Sic the government on ’em! The speaker of the House made it clear to me and more than forty of my colleagues yesterday that a bill by Rep. Mike Pence (R.-Ind.) to outlaw the \u201cFairness Doctrine\u201d (which a liberal administration could use to silence Rush […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,4,18],"tags":[65],"class_list":["post-2772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","category-media","category-pc","tag-fairness-doctrine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2772"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2772\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25404,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2772\/revisions\/25404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}