The "Fairness Doctrine"

[exile]

National Socialist Party= That was Hitlers party. His economic policies were a blend of socialism and terror. I believe the oder is dictatorship, communism, socialism and capitalism with each having the ability to morph into the one above. Dictatorship is the one that can't morph... nowhere to go.

Chad, the National Socialist party wasn't a socialist party at all; in fact, long before they started going after the Jews and other ethnic targets, they went after the Socialists, and pretty well wiped them out—the first occupants of Nazi concentration camps were their left wing opponents (I believe Dachau was largely occupied, at least at the beginning, by those people). But during this same era, the Nazis got along just fine with the Stalinists; in fact, both Hitler and Stalin supplied money and armaments to Franco's Phalangists so that the latter could wipe out the Poum (the Social Democrats), and the anarcho-syndicalists in Barcelona. This has been talked about before on MT; I posted the following quite some time back here in a thread which bears on this issue.

Hitler called his party National `Socialist' in exactly the same way that the official name of North Korea is the People's Democratic Republic of North Korea. You can call your party or your country whatever you like, with no necessary connection to anything remotely like the true meaning of the words you put together. For that matter, the Holy Roman Empire, as people have observed over and over again, was neither Holy nor Roman, and there are grave doubts as to whether it was an actual empire. Social Dems in European parties were and are virtually unanimous that there wasn't anything the least bit socialist about the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. And so on...

It's important to keep tabs on this sort of thing, because we appear to have slid from characterizing the Fairness doctrine first as socialist, then as communist (under the socialism/communism equation) and now appear to be on the verge of characterizing it as a manifestation of Naziism minus the terrorism aspect. I don't think these labels serve the discussion well, and the progression from socialism to naziism is progressively more shakey and without historical justification. There are plenty of issues of real content, such as the question of who it is who really owns the airwaves, and what that entails, that have much more bearing on the substance of the OP, I think...

 

[Carol]

Heh. Rush Limbaugh and I started our broadcasting career at about the same time....and thats where the similarities end. LOL!!

When Rush started his career as a rock jock, the shock jocks were starting to get traction, he brought his loudmouth spiel over to the no-mans land of AM.

I think the Fairness Doctrine will result in more consumer choice, just less of it on the AM and FM band.

I don't think we'll see "Rush and Randi" or "Hughes and Savage", I suspect the ubertalkers will jump over to satellite (which is unregulated and hungry for content) so they could continue to do their own thing their own way without the government interfering.

The biggest station groups on the AM band will probably put together some Hannity and Colmes type pairings. I suspect the overall political oomph, especially on AM, will falter as stations may find its easier to drop the political talk altogether than it is to stay competitive AND be within regs.

Could get interesting.

*checks stock price of Sirius*

 

[Carol]

There are some markets--eg Seattle, Portland, San Diego--where Ed Schultz' ratings beat Hannity. Yet Ed Schultz STILL is heard on fewer than 100 stations. There are major markets where Randi Rhodes kills Hannity and O'Reilly--yet Hannity and O'Reilly will STILL get more stations.

More stations does not equal more listenership.

Teeny tiny Massachusetts has more electoral votes than not-so-tiny Montana, Utah, and Idaho combined. It takes dozens of radio stations to cover an area of that size. One single Boston station reaches about as many people as the dozens of rural stations in those states. The stations in the New York radio market reach more people than all the other stations in all the other parts of all of New York State, combined. That's the power of major markets.

 

[michaeledward]

Part of the problem is media conglomeration.

Clear Channel and Greater Media continue to purchase radio stations, television stations and newspapers. The bigger these companies become, the less likely they are to take risks in programming.

If Rush Limbaugh sells airtime, they will take one of two actions; a) syndicate Rush Limbaugh on their stations b) find a personality who will behave more like Rush Limbaugh than Rush Limbaugh.

I travel pretty extensively throughout the Northeast. Every city I go to has "Delilia" spewing her touchy feely bile on two or three frequencies. It's cheap. But, if you pay attention, you'll notice she never mentions a location.

Broadcasting used to have to make the pretense of serving the local market. Apparently, periodic dispatches from the "National Weather Service" is sufficient to be 'local'.




One more thing, not specifically to you Ray, but you brought it up. Really, if you think NPR is a balance, you nuts; and you have been buying what the talkjocks sell, rather than listening and using your own brain. NPR is far from left wing. The center does not 'balance' the right wing. Watch Sunday morning FoxNews and you see two of NPR's most prominent personalities; Mara Liasson and Juan Williams. They may look liberal, but that is only because they are sitting next to William Kristol - the guy who recently told us the Bush Presidency was going to be viewed as a tremendous success.

I would suggest anyone who thinks that Fox is Balance for the Main Stream Media google and read "If it's Sunday, It's Conservative" and "If It's Sunday, It's Still Conservative".

Then, when you see the Liberal Bias in the News Media, you'll see that Tim Russert bill bring in Republican Chuck Hagel for the left wing view point, to balance indicted former congressman Tom Delay with the right wing view point. Whatever that is, it is not 'balance'.

 

[Makalakumu]

Mike is right. NPR isn't left wing. Otherwise they would be openly calling for the impeachment of President Bush among other things. MY opinion is that is that NPR is probably the only balanced news coverage we actually have. For example, they had Bill Kristol on the other night on Fresh Air. His interviewer let him give his opinions and asked very probing questions to get deeper and deeper. They regularly do this to all of their guests.

 

[Ray]

Part of the problem is media conglomeration.

Clear Channel and Greater Media continue to purchase radio stations, television stations and newspapers. The bigger these companies become, the less likely they are to take risks in programming.

Thanks for sharing that aspect of why you think the airwaves are programmed conservative.

I'm sincerely curious why you think it would be "taking a risk" to program otherwise. Whether fiscally or socially liberal (no offense w/ "liberal" if "progressive" fits better), there have to be people who would tune it?

Broadcasting used to have to make the pretense of serving the local market. Apparently, periodic dispatches from the "National Weather Service" is sufficient to be 'local'.

100% agree that they don't serve the local communities.

One more thing, not specifically to you Ray, but you brought it up. Really, if you think NPR is a balance, you nuts;

Truth be told, I might be nuts.

I used to also watch stuff like FSTV on dish and will again soon when I get dish again.

I believe that all kinds of viewpoints should be expressed; and we should be able to hear/read them. You never know where a good idea will come from; I don't necessarily believe that "all the answers" are in one quarter or the other. Still, I wish the fairness doctrine wasn't the only way to ensure it happens...

 

[michaeledward]

I think if the programming were available, many people would tune into liberal media. Right now, there is really no way to tell.

When I say risk, there are several items that come to bear. Rush Limbaugh did not start his programming on 600 stations. It took quite some time for him to gain that much media coverage. The suits in big businesses have to answer to a quarterly report for stockholders. Introducing liberal programming would need time to build an audience. With the media conglomeration we have witnessed over the past decade, time is a luxury companies are not willing to invest in programming. Why do you think there are three Law & Order franchaises, and how many CSI Franchaises? For the suits, there is no risk in putty a 'little Limbaugh' on the air. And only small risk if you broadcast a 'little Imus'.

Another risk inherint in introducing liberal programming, is that the existing rightwing programming has a built in target. Never mind that Air America was beating Bill O'Reilly in New York City. Most of the country did not have access to Air America. BillO had 300 stations across the country on which he could attack Air America (as he is attacking DailyKos now).


In the Boston Market, the Talk Radio station features a bunch of right wing, middle aged white guys. The only liberal personality on the radio station (Jim Braudie) is 'balanced' with a slightly right of center female co-host (Marjorie Egan) for there three hour daily spot. The two rabid, lying, discredited personalities - (Michael Graham and Jay Severin) - each get more air time on the station (4.5 hours and 4 hours respectively), and do not have to have a 'co-host' to 'balance' their point of view. And, their airtime is during morning and evening drive time.

Hell, just look at the graphic at the top of their web page .. http://www.wtkk.com/ .. do you think you are getting a diversified opinion from these people?

 

[crushing]

Mike is right. NPR isn't left wing. Otherwise they would be openly calling for the impeachment of President Bush among other things. MY opinion is that is that NPR is probably the only balanced news coverage we actually have. For example, they had Bill Kristol on the other night on Fresh Air. His interviewer let him give his opinions and asked very probing questions to get deeper and deeper. They regularly do this to all of their guests.

I tend to agree with your statements about NPR. One of my favorite shows on NPR is the broadcast of the Commonwealth Club of California. Independent of whether or not I agree with the speaker, it's good to hear more than the normal 20 to 45 second discussion about important topics and people. I was even pleasantly surprised by Michael Moore on the show once during the Presidential race in 2000, before he was selling 'F-911'.

Also, it seems to me that the individual's perception of the media being either conservative or liberal tends to tell us more about that individual's political position rather than the media itself. Media Matters for America and the Media Research Center can each look at the same news and each claim it was slanted towards different sides of the political spectrum.

 

[Carol]

I don't necessarily believe that "all the answers" are in one quarter or the other. Still, I wish the fairness doctrine wasn't the only way to ensure it happens...

I don't think a Fairness Doctrine will ensure that it happens.

When I was preparing for my FCC license exams, my mentor gave me some software for the law section. I was intrigued...I thought I was going to be reading jucy tidbits about what you can and can't say on the radio. I was wrong. Most of FCC law consists of dry engineering formulae. The regs regarding content were, and are, very vague. Local interest programming is an example of the vaguaries. Serving the local market is defined explicitly in the engineering spec, it involves a defined minimum of signal strength over the city of license. Serving the local market in terms of content...not so clear.

Should a Fairness Doctrine be put in place, what "Fairness" is will likely be argued by attorneys...again favoring the large conglomerates with the bigger resources.

Should properties on the AM band become less commercially viable, that may pave the way for further deregulation of media properties, making the large conglomerates larger.

My own thoughts...

Liberal talk to me is a still-waiting-to-explode medium.

One of the best radio talk shows I ever heard was hosted by Mr. Dennis Kucenich. I found myself disagreeing, agreeing, learining, questioning...even though many of my own views were different his, I found his discussions to be quite intriguing. Sometimes I wish he didn't have his day job.

If Mr. Kucenich were to make a career change I'm guessing he would have no problem building up a national following. And...this is what I find myself wishing for. Someone that is nationally known with a lot of star power, a lot of charisma, and the communications skills that can blow some rusty old radio doors wide open and show that there is more to liberal talk than coming across as a left-wing Rush.

If that were to happen, I think that would invigorate political discussions a lot more than regulation.

 

[ChadWarner]

Chad, the National Socialist party wasn't a socialist party at all; in fact, long before they started going after the Jews and other ethnic targets, they went after the Socialists, and pretty well wiped them out—the first occupants of Nazi concentration camps were their left wing opponents (I believe Dachau was largely occupied, at least at the beginning, by those people). But during this same era, the Nazis got along just fine with the Stalinists; in fact, both Hitler and Stalin supplied money and armaments to Franco's Phalangists so that the latter could wipe out the Poum (the Social Democrats), and the anarcho-syndicalists in Barcelona. This has been talked about before on MT; I posted the following quite some time back here in a thread which bears on this issue.

Hitler called his party National `Socialist' in exactly the same way that the official name of North Korea is the People's Democratic Republic of North Korea. You can call your party or your country whatever you like, with no necessary connection to anything remotely like the true meaning of the words you put together. For that matter, the Holy Roman Empire, as people have observed over and over again, was neither Holy nor Roman, and there are grave doubts as to whether it was an actual empire. Social Dems in European parties were and are virtually unanimous that there wasn't anything the least bit socialist about the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. And so on...

It's important to keep tabs on this sort of thing, because we appear to have slid from characterizing the Fairness doctrine first as socialist, then as communist (under the socialism/communism equation) and now appear to be on the verge of characterizing it as a manifestation of Naziism minus the terrorism aspect. I don't think these labels serve the discussion well, and the progression from socialism to naziism is progressively more shakey and without historical justification. There are plenty of issues of real content, such as the question of who it is who really owns the airwaves, and what that entails, that have much more bearing on the substance of the OP, I think...

Economic policies I said. Terror tactics for the rest- I say this becuase of the government ownership or partial ownership of industry- I believe their party had their fingers in most things- and everything near the 3rd reichs (don't crucify my spelling here I am aging LOL) uhm strongest days. That particular group (the nazis) used the SA which were a particular group of militants that were executed after their thugery was of no value. No value means the SA were replaced by hitlers own SS, which he founded and led.

My point is we have enough laws and government control- let the marketplace decide... ah- as long as foriegn goods have proper tarrifs and our 20 dollar an hour workers don't have to compete with 1 dollar a day foreign workers. For me, this is what I expect the crooks- er um- I mean the federal governments role is. Not nation building, not stealing from tax payers, and not circumventing the bill of rights so carefully laid out by Mr. Thomas Jefferson. Our country, our citizens, and our constitution first.

 

[michaeledward]

My point is we have enough laws and government control- let the marketplace decide...

What if 'the marketplace' demonstrates a reluctance to present choices for consumers.

Remember, when you could have any color phone you wanted, as long as it was black?

How many people have a radio station on their dial called "The River" ? I bet all of us do. Because one company owns all those stations.

When companies have the legal ability to own dozens of radio stations across the country, the marketplace requirement to drive down costs will dictate making setting up a 'national brand' in broadcast. Local flavor is completely removed. The morning DJ you listen too may be broadcasting from a different time zone.

In that world, the marketplace, exists only as a concept. It is not a competative environment where mutliple ideas can flourish or fail based on the merits.

In order for the 'marketplace' to decide, first such a place needs to exist.

 

[Phoenix44]

More stations does not equal more listenership.

I don't agree with this statement in the context of this thread. For example: Limbaugh, Hannity, Savage, Randi Rhodes and Ed Schultz are all heard in the larger markets. But that's where the equity stops. If Schultz is on fewer than 100 stations (including NYC), and Limbaugh is on 500 (including NYC), then Limbaugh can be heard in more areas by more people, period. And the disparity is much clearer when you consider that 76% of political talk radio is conservative vs. 24% liberal. That's a big difference.

 

[Carol]

I don't agree with this statement in the context of this thread. For example: Limbaugh, Hannity, Savage, Randi Rhodes and Ed Schultz are all heard in the larger markets. But that's where the equity stops. If Schultz is on fewer than 100 stations (including NYC), and Limbaugh is on 500 (including NYC), then Limbaugh can be heard in more areas by more people, period. And the disparity is much clearer when you consider that 76% of political talk radio is conservative vs. 24% liberal. That's a big difference.

Ahh...I follow now. Thanks. :asian:

 

[Blotan Hunka]

Doesnt the idea of politicians defining and legislating "fairness" scare any of you? It sure does me.

 

[Rich Parsons]

Doesnt the idea of politicians defining and legislating "fairness" scare any of you? It sure does me.

It scares me. Also if the airwaves are "owned" by everyone, then could not the "other-side" of what ever is the concern just get air time of their own?

Could I demand to have my time as well since I agree with both of the major parties in the USA on many issues?

 

[michaeledward]

It scares me. Also if the airwaves are "owned" by everyone, then could not the "other-side" of what ever is the concern just get air time of their own?

Could I demand to have my time as well since I agree with both of the major parties in the USA on many issues?

The airwaves are owned by the citizens. The rights to use those airwaves are licensed to the broadcasting companies. The companies that own the broadcast equipment are not philanthranpic organizations willing to donate this limited resource to anyone with an opinion. They will happily sell you air time to broadcast your opinion. Remember, in this country, money equals speech.

Isn't that perverse ... if you are a citizen of the country, you are a partial owner of the broadcast spectrum, but you can't use it without going through a multinational corporate gatekeeper. The 'major parties in the USA' do not hold the licenses to the broadcast spectrum. The holders of those licenses are Viacom, Disney, and General Electric.

I believe there should be few, if any restrictions, upon a citizens right to vote in this country. However, if you are unaware of the basic configuration of how information is disseminated to America through the broadcast media (still, the most popular method for Americans to receive information, by far), you should be ashamed of yourself when you step into a voting booth.

Oh, and incidentally, you can not set up a broadcast device in your backyard. The broadcast spectrum is controlled by the Federal Communications Commission

 

[Blindside]

The airwaves are owned by the citizens. The rights to use those airwaves are licensed to the broadcasting companies. The companies that own the broadcast equipment are not philanthranpic organizations willing to donate this limited resource to anyone with an opinion. They will happily sell you air time to broadcast your opinion. Remember, in this country, money equals speech.

I don't really see what the problem with a free-market approach to this is. You are correct, these companies aren't philanthropic, if they want to reach a significant portion of the consumer base they better cover all ends of the political spectrum. Political watchdogging of this just seems so unnecessary.

Lamont

 

[michaeledward]

I don't really see what the problem with a free-market approach to this is. You are correct, these companies aren't philanthropic, if they want to reach a significant portion of the consumer base they better cover all ends of the political spectrum. Political watchdogging of this just seems so unnecessary.

You are assuming the market is 'free'. Who are the competitors? What are the barriers to entry, if I wish to compete with these companies?

And to whom do the conglomerates owe their allegience, the citizens who allow them to generate revenue with their airwaves, or the stockholders in the corporation?

If there is a conflict between what is good for the citizenry, and what is good for the company, how does this conflict get resolved?

For the record, my political point of view is not covered by any media, anywhere in America.

 

[Makalakumu]

Oh, and incidentally, you can not set up a broadcast device in your backyard. The broadcast spectrum is controlled by the Federal Communications Commission

How about we get rid of the FCC instead of reinstituting the "fairness" doctrine? Let anybody with a handset and some amps broadcast and lets get a real competition of ideas going. Under the current system, all the "fairness" doctrine is going to do is let both heads of the hydra speak at once.

 

[Mr. E]

The 'major parties in the USA' do not hold the licenses to the broadcast spectrum. The holders of those licenses are Viacom, Disney, and General Electric.

Oh, and incidentally, you can not set up a broadcast device in your backyard. The broadcast spectrum is controlled by the Federal Communications Commission

You are assuming the market is 'free'. Who are the competitors? What are the barriers to entry, if I wish to compete with these companies?

People can set up their own broadcasting stations if they follow the rules laid down by the FCC. It may take money, but that is the same as setting up a newspaper. Do you suppose that newspapers should be next for the fairness doctrine?

I do not think that everyone owns the airwaves. There are limits on the amount of bandwidths availible and they should be prevented from immoral acts. Libel, slander, fraud and encouraging others to violence are things that should be prevented from anyone putting out any sort of media message. Regulations so that one station does not drown out another station are also needed.

But there is a limited number of roads administered by the government. Should people driving on them be forced to do certain things for the government in return in the name of 'fairness'? Should people with cars using the roads be forced to give rides to people who do not in the name of fairness? There are also implications in this debate for the internet that was originally set up and is still monitored by the US government.

And what is "fair"? Blotan Hunka and Rich Parsons are right in their fear of a government forcing others to do what they think is "fair." If you let that nose of the camel into the tent there is no telling where things will end up. Take a look at the assaults right now on the free press in Russia, Venuzuela and Zimbabwe and the excuses being given. The less a government is able to tell what a press source can, can't and must say the better.

Seriously, who determines that one argument needs fair counter balance? There are people who deny that the holocaust happened or that American went to the moon. Are you going to give them equal time to those that do say these things happened?

And if you say that the number of people that think that way are too small to consider, what happens to the idea of this being needed to protect the minority?

If the government instead gets to choose which issues are serious and which are too silly to give equal time to, the potential for abuse is huge. There is no objective standards to look to like in the case of libel, fraud or encouraging violence. And I can think of some politicians that might require equal time to creationists every time a special on Darwin is shown.

The less that a government can tell us what to do the better. It is a universal principle because everyone is treated equally under the law. That goes for me, that goes for you and that goes for the broadcasters.