Fairness Doctrine

[shrumpage]

Originally posted by: Craig234
Shrumpage, you're still missing the point on markets, that they're two ways - they create demand as well as satisfy it.

When you have a lot of money and an agenda, you can create a 'market'. There's a history of how the right-wing has organized and been funded, which leads to the creation of the 'markets' you speak of.

It's not accurate to pretend that there are just this mass of tens of millions of people who have wanted right-wing talk radio for decades, and the market just failed to deliver it to them until recently.

My argument isn't based on any one voice having 'too much sway', but rather the larger issues that the system is allowing too much consolidation which limits free speech, and gives too much power to the monied corporate interests. I don't want the government saying "that Rush is too popular, let's go after him"; I do want them saying the media has become too narrowly owned for the public interest.

For all I care as far as government intervention, let 99% of Americans listen to and follow Rush, as long as he's playing on a fair playing field - that's where his ideas need to be debated and defeated 'fair and square'. It's when the content is not merely 'meeting' consumer demand, but being pushed on consumers to serve a narrow agenda by a few huge media owners, that I'm saying it's a problem.

Things are pretty broken today, and I'd like that improved before we lose the parts that still work. Where I live, in the San Francisco area, six million people in nine counties are all served daily newspapers down from many choices earlier to where every paper for that whole area is published by one man, except for one paper, the SF Chronicle.

That robs the papers of a richness of debate and diversity. Saying 'it's what the market wants' is neither an answer to the issue nor accurate, there are a lot of factors other than public preference.

Look at Howard Stern. It took him years to build up his show, millions of listeners, hundreds of markets. People saw that and said "hey, I can do that to!" and low and behold we have a bunch of copy cat shock jocks. It wasn't some grand conspiracy, or plotting by people.

Some one came up with a successful formula and others used it.

Substitute Stern with Rush and shock jock with talk show host - and you have the exact same thing.

"Level Playing Field?" Did some one stop Al Franken from going on the air? Did corporations band together and say "OMG we must keep Air America of the air!!!!" No it failed on its own.

You don't get successful in radio overnight, it takes time. You need a good host, you need a good formula, and most importantly you need people to tune in. That last one is a toughy.

And i can guarantee as soon as liberal talk show starts pulling in the ratings the exact same thing that happened with Stern, Rush and anything else that is a hit: people will try and copy it.

I notice you ignored the little bit about the government using the fairness doctrine to shut down critics - how would you deal with that?

Plus if you look through my past posts i link judges, PBS and the FCC that acknowledge that "fairness doctrine" had the affect of stifling discussion, instead of promoting.

 

[Craig234]

Shrumpage, there's some truth in what you say, but you are missing a big part of it too. I suggest you go read one of the many books explaining how the modern right wing was artifically created with an alliance of forces, from the big money ideological donors like Richard Mellon Scaife, to the media moguls like Rupert Murdoch, to the controllers of the masses like James Dobson.

Without any comparison between the Nazis and Republicans in substance, but merely in how political movements are created, Hitler had his Goebbels and other propagandists, who led the public to accept him and embrace his movement that was otherwise repugnant. You can say that the public support that eventually existed was 'the market' too, can't you? Not really.

<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>I notice you ignored the little bit about the government using the fairness doctrine to shut down critics - how would you deal with that?</end quote></div>

Did you read the content I posted earlier? It's a ways back, but basically addressed this, how the fairness doctrine was not nearly as strong as people think it was. You can always find a few data points for most positions, such as the claim that it limited speech, but that's not really proof, and the evidence I have seen suggest the benefit could have outweighed any downside.

I actually rarely recall it being used; on rare occassion, someone would request a bit of time to say something in response to what had been aired.

Are you really trying to say that the ultra wealthy won't get free speech if the fairness doctrine were in place? They'd have their say.

But again, I'm not now saying it needs to be put back. I would like to see a restoration on limitations of ownership of the media to spread it out.

 

[shrumpage]

There is a reason it was rarely invoked, and it has been mentioned in the quotes i've linked to. It was far easier not to say anything that would be considered contraversal, then to deal with red tape and giving away air time.

Its quite ironic you bring up Hitler, he used government to make sure things broadcast on the radio where factual and true. Good thing government is fair and impartial when it comes to judging content.

But again, I'm not now saying it needs to be put back. I would like to see a restoration on limitations of ownership of the media to spread it out.

So basically we both don't support the fairness doctrine, but agree on limiting ownership on media (though to what extent may vary).

 

[Craig234]

You are not understanding how it was 'invoked', it seems, when you talk about avoiding controversy; it was rarely invoked in that it took people deciding they wanted to present another viewpoint and requeting to do so, and then doing so briefly, so that a lot of 'controversial' content was aired without any response.

That means that the 'pain' of the fairness doctrine for controversial content was lower than described in this thread.

Do you have any *quantitative* estimates of the content not aired because of the doctrine, or even suggesting outside of anecdotes that it was a significant amount?

And yes, we seem to agree on increased limits to media ownership.

 

[shrumpage]

No, but i look at the circumstantial:

USSC judge says it can limit what people are will say in fear of the cost of responding.

FCC reports that the law was actually curtailing discussion, instead of promoting.

PBS reported the same thing.

Both Nixon and Kennedy used the law to stop critics.

And only AFTER the fairness doctrine was removed did political talk shows start to take off.

Would Rush's show have been green light if the manager knew he had to deal with all the complaints and mandatory air time given away- after every show?

 

[QuantumPion]

I'm in favor of the fairness doctrine.

Rush's show is 3 hours per day, 5 days a week, 15 hours per week in total.

NPR broadcasts liberal junk 24/7. That's 168 hours per week total.

Therefore, in order to comply with the fairness doctrine, NPR must syndicate Rush's show and repeat it 11 times per day, for a total of 33 hours per day. Since there are only 24 hours in a day, we'll round down to 24 and call it even. Consider that a gift from your favorite harmless lovable fuzzball, El Rushbo.

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: Doc Savage Fan
Bowfinger, I think we can all agree agree that it's "in the public interest to have a well-informed electorate who has at least some awareness of other sides of issues". But I think that most people believe that this isn't a problem in this day and age of highly evolved communications where every viewpoint imaginable is available through numerous outlets for public consumption.

Right, because people avail themselves of diverse voices; they don't listen to just one 'side' of the issues. Why, I'm sure the average Fox viewer subsribes to The Nation, too.

That explains how well things work, you're right there's no problem; only 4 years into our nation's war in Iraq, only 41% believe Saddam was involved in 9/11.

Do you really care about fairness? Are you genuinely concerned about public awareness of other viewpoints? Or would it be fair to say that you're actually much more concerned about promoting liberal viewpoints and suppressing conservative viewpoints?

Liberals are generally the ones who are about the right to diversity, who want voices not to be suppressed; and part of that is not wanting the few who have the most money to be able to dominate the media messages, as is so much the case now. Denying the wealthy the ability to dominate far beyond their number is not the same as 'suppressing conservative viewpoints'.

(Too bad the right-wing outlets don't have a few more actual conservative viewpoints, instead of the corporatist right-wing agenda).

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: Mxylplyx
<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: Craig234
For example, no cable company in the US I know of will carry the very Al-Jazeera World channel, and I don't think it's for a lack of subscriber interest; it's the political backlash.</end quote></div>

When theres a demand for it, you'll get it.

Thanks for the right-wing cult ideological response.

It wasn't needed, we know the mantra you follow, but you need to post it of course.

Way to miss the issue - while you're wrong on the example, the larger issue is that a few huge corporations get the 'censorship' power, and that's an issue.

The fact that they're going to be somewhat more responsive to the public than, say, Pravda under the USSR isn't an answer; they're not much going to allow anti-corporatism content.

There are plenty of examples of the corporate bias on these outlets.

The American people will have that much harder a time to organize any anti-corporatist political movement for that reason, and that's a problem.

But apparently, the corporatists have such nice marketing available they can convince Americans only to scream when the government demands balance, not about corporatism.

 

[dmens]

Originally posted by: Craig234
Liberals are generally the ones who are about the right to diversity, who want voices not to be suppressed

LOL, this made me laugh. If you really think the left is less inclined than the right to suppress viewpoints unsavory to them, then you are naive to the point of complete hopelessness.

 

[Craig234]

Your post has excellent supporting evidence for your claims as usual, dmens. Try to keep it down, so there's not so much to dig through.

Care to post the right-wing counterpart to the liberal Salon, whose section of blogs is split evenly between left and right-wing blogs?

Care to post the right-wing counterpart to Bill Moyers' PBS shows, which frequently feature interviews with leading right-wing figures? Etc.

Care to post the right-wing counterpart to Thom Hartmann, whose radio show frequently interviews and debates leading right-wingers?

Show me all the tolernace for liberal views in the Rush, Stossel, Coulter, O'Reilly, Beck Savage, etc. shows. The Hannity 'balance' is a joke.

 

[dmens]

Originally posted by: Craig234
Your post has excellent supporting evidence for your claims as usual, dmens. Try to keep it down, so there's not so much to dig through.

Care to post the right-wing counterpart to the liberal Salon, whose section of blogs is split evenly between left and right-wing blogs?

Care to post the right-wing counterpart to Bill Moyers' PBS shows, which frequently feature interviews with leading right-wing figures? Etc.

Care to post the right-wing counterpart to Thom Hartmann, whose radio show frequently interviews and debates leading right-wingers?

Show me all the tolernace for liberal views in the Rush, Stossel, Coulter, O'Reilly, Beck Savage, etc. shows. The Hannity 'balance' is a joke.

Nice strawman. You list a bunch of conservative personalities, none of which I have ever stated presents a balanced viewpoint, then ask me to prove their balance. :Q

Also, I like how you focus specifically on talk show radio, a media with an acknowledged conservative bent. Why don't we talk about the nation's broadsheet editorials, most of which are dominated by leftist writers? New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, San Francisco Chronicle, St. Petersburg Times, Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Yes, just as the conservatives have their talk show radio, the leftists have their newspaper editorials.

I stated that both the left and right are guilty of suppressing viewpoints, I figure that was so obvious I didn't need to post any proof. Didn't know someone would really believe that leftists are somehow less guilty of this behavior and posts a nutty strawman argument to "prove" it. You're not just naive, you're also a friggin idiot.

 

[imported_Shivetya]

Originally posted by: Craig234

Originally posted by: Doc Savage Fan
Bowfinger, I think we can all agree agree that it's "in the public interest to have a well-informed electorate who has at least some awareness of other sides of issues". But I think that most people believe that this isn't a problem in this day and age of highly evolved communications where every viewpoint imaginable is available through numerous outlets for public consumption.

Right, because people avail themselves of diverse voices; they don't listen to just one 'side' of the issues. Why, I'm sure the average Fox viewer subsribes to The Nation, too..

I can point to more "libs" who will not watch FOX compared to conservatives who will not watch CNN. In fact the first group is usually more likely to brag about it.

 

[Craig234]

Originally posted by: Shivetya

Originally posted by: Craig234

Originally posted by: Doc Savage Fan
Bowfinger, I think we can all agree agree that it's "in the public interest to have a well-informed electorate who has at least some awareness of other sides of issues". But I think that most people believe that this isn't a problem in this day and age of highly evolved communications where every viewpoint imaginable is available through numerous outlets for public consumption.

Right, because people avail themselves of diverse voices; they don't listen to just one 'side' of the issues. Why, I'm sure the average Fox viewer subsribes to The Nation, too..

I can point to more "libs" who will not watch FOX compared to conservatives who will not watch CNN. In fact the first group is usually more likely to brag about it.

I won't watch Fox, because it's an utter waste of time. Same with all the right-wing radio shows I mentioned.

But here's the difference: I gave them a chance. I've watched Fox, Rush, Hannity, Savage, O'Reilly and many more. I know few Fox viewers who have ever read read David Brock, who have ever tuned in Thom Hartmann, who have ever read an issue of The Nation - more, but still few, who even watch the extremely fair and high quality shows like Frontline.

Loot at yourself, calling the far from left CNN left-wing, showing your own bias. Tell me how you are readin Howard Zinn, and you will have a point; you get no credit for CNN as 'left'.

When you learn more about the topic, you come to see that the early view you havfe when naive that the sides are similarly useful is not correct - read a book like David Brock's "The RIght-Wing Noise Machine", a book like Eric Alterman's "What Liberal Media?", and you might realize the vast vapidness of the corporatist right-wing media (with its agenda, different from the perhaps even more vapid entertainment media).

But as I noted, the liberal sources pay a lot more attention to what the other side has to say than I see the right-wing sources do - not that the right has nothing to say about what the liberals are saying, but they are tending to not be accurate, and instead to just attack the straw man version of the left they use for keeping their audience.

So while Salon will link directly to hundreds of right-wing sources, Rush will rant about his straw man version of some liberal view. "They love the terrorists!" type nonsense.