I am 100% Against a Fairness Doctrine

I have worked in media my whole life and most of it in talk radio. I am more than quite aware of the extreme heavy lean towards the right-wing talk shows such as Rush, Hannity, etc. They make me ill.

But a Fairness Doctrine is NOT The way to fix the problem with the media RW bias. I don't want the government telling me what I can do with my talk show. There are some serious First Amendment problems when a government dictates the content on the airways or in print.

The way to fix the problem is to re-enact the Telecommunications act of 1996. Basically when they did away with the Telecom act in 1996 the media consolidation went nuts. Clear Channel and others could buy up significantly more TV, radio and print outlets than ever before. Fewer businesses mean fewer broad-based viewpoints. The localism of media is nearly gone with syndicated talk, cable news programming and most newspapers using AP and other national feeds.

I don't have a problem with Rush having an opinion or viewpoint. He makes hundreds of miliions for ad revenue and is a good business for his owners. So be it. But when Clear Channel owns the other three AM stations in a market they don't want to counter program against Rush to dillute his ratings. So they will put sports talk on one and big band music on the other. However if the other AM was locally owned they could certainly counter-program Rush.

"I don't want the government telling me what I can do with my talk show"

It's a little more complex than this. The Fairness Doctrine strictures don't tell you what you can say or print.

It says if you own a radio station in a market, you can't own a newspaper or TV station in the same market.

It seeks a broader variety of viewpoints, not by monitoring or censoring content, but by spreading ownership of media in a market.

Say one right-winger owns a TV station in a market, and another right-winger owns a newspaper in that same market, and another winger owns the other newspaper in that same market, and yet another winger owns a radio station in that same market. You'd have both papers, the biggest radio station and the biggest TV station all owned by right-wingers in the same market.

So long as those owners aren't part of the same company, so long as they are all separate entities, the Fairness Doctrine has no beef.

So it isn't content, it's ownership.

More diverse ownership will lead to more diverse conversation.

Dig this:

http://www.cjr.org/resources/

See how few owners there are for so much media?

Diversification of ownership will be good for us all.

And none of it is about censorship or telling you how to run your show.

Yes, because if there are 100 elite assholes controlling the news media, they'll be so much more diverse than the 10 current elite owners.

Last I checked, an asshole is an asshole.

Sex, scandal, sensationalism, and gossip sells. Digging into issues and informing the people what happens a half a world away, much less so.

This was exacerbated mightily by the loosening of anti-trust protections on the media. We've now got like three companies controlling almost every paper, radio channel, and all 200 or whatever channels on cable.

I want the 10 assholes that own all the media telling us what we can only do.

Bend over and take it from the Megacorporations. They have "free speech", we have no voice at all-and they want to keep it that way!

...And this can be shown in leaked internal media memos, is they want to stop dissent and completely control the news message (censorship).

The Fairness Doctrine is exactly the opposite, which only dictates that censorship cannot happen (contrasting views must be presented). And people are afraid of this?

"Opinion" stamp beneath their hate filled rants, since most of their listeners think of them as "newscasters".

We should repeal it.

Once it was done away with, all hell broke loose. Bring it back.

Ok, I don't want the government telling us what to put on the air, but CLINTON paved the way for CLEAR CHANNEL to take over the RADIO-WAVES, against all common sense, and it was illegal at the time I believe.

And with Obama shaping up by playing it safe toward big business, (Oh, we will get our crumbs I'm sure, more than McSame would have thrown our way.) we could be in big trouble on these issues.

I think we need at least to support the INDEPENDENTS A LOT MORE so that they can argue against any future corporate presidents.

This thing isn't working out so well...

Would you rather have the government telling a newscast to present X, Y, Z on issue #1, or have a rich, cross-invested elitist telling a newscast to ONLY present X on issue #1 (a view that will help his portfolio)? For those afraid of the Fairness Doctrine, the alternative, which we currently have, is far worse.

and the media was with it. Without it there would have been no Watergate scandal. Without it there will be no accountability for the crimes of BushCo. PERIOD.

Bring back strict ownership rules on how many radio/TV/newspaper outlets you can own in an area - force Clear Channel/Viacom/ABC/Disney to sell off their stations and make room for more competitors. Hell, try to make the markets open enough that lots of little mom & pop outlets can spring up. That'll get some more liberal programming on the air.

Also, how about some rules on what talk radio and TV news outlets are allowed to name their content. If they fill their days with bloviating assholes like Rush who editorialize and express opinions, then they should call it commentary. They can't take editorializing and call it "news."

And I personally am for reinstating the Fairness Doctrine, though not the stereotyped strawman Fairness Doctrine the righttards are screeching about, but the real thing, which gives media outlets a lot of leeway, but does require that they present at least a little of all sides of a controversy. In other words, a radio station that airs Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, Neil Boortz and Randi Rhodes would be in compliance.

I think these are separate issues from the fairness doctrine, and I'm not sure how it worked. I think its too late, congress is owned, everyone is OWNED. It is clear, there are NO LIBERALS as of yet??? This will NOT SIT WELL!

Congress is just as bad, its all that money, power, who knows what goes on. We do not live in a 'democracy', but a corporate plutocracy.

Feed the people, make em all nice and fat, and when they complain, well, rat-a-tat-tat.

It seems to have hit radio particularly hard. There was a time when as you traveled across the country by car, you heard the music and news of each locality. Now, where ever you go, it is the same "top 40" music. The small, local radio stations have lost support, since no one will advertize on them when they can get time on a huge syndicated radio corp.

Media consolidation is also a travesty to free speech, and to giving full knowledge to the people. When you have the same corp-Murdoch's for instance- owning TV stations, newspapers, and radio stations in the same locale, that is the same as monopoly...it is an action that occurs in the restraint of trade. It tends to prevent free competition in business, and nowadays, media is merely a business.

It is the media consolidation as the problem which was essentially mad epossible by the destruction of the Telecomm Act in 1996. Repeal that and we could get back to more local programming.

As for posters above talking about the rich assholes running media...I worked for a #1 radio talk station is a good sized market that was locally owned and operated. Our station was very fair and had a wide range of politica and other beliefs. You put these outlets back into local owner's hands and the opinions will be more diverse.

A "fairness doctrine" is not enforceable. One person's interpretation of what is fair is not another's interpretation. It would be about as useless as the war on drugs. But reversing the Telecomm deal of 1996 would do wonders and and hopefully could reverse the awful consolidation of media in the US.

transformed into something that does not resemble what we have now. Print/televised and radio media is dying from self-inflicted wounds, although the tv still has the power to create reality. The internet has taken over the gathering and distributing of lots of news. Think of all the websites that have investigative journalists. I think that diversity in the news as we know it is a pipe dream, as long as such humongous multi-faceted corporations have the power to dislodge any competition. But how do independent journalists make money? Who is willing to pay anymore for what is freely available on the net? I fear that our access to information will get worse before it gets better.


http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Norman_Solomon/Norman_Solomon_page.html

You want to have Limbaugh, Hannity and O'Reilly on back to back?

Fine, just as long as you give SOMEONE ELSE a CHANCE to present an OPPOSING view.

See, that's where the "Fairness" part comes in.

And you won't miss a precious SECOND of Limbaugh.

unfortunately the rightwing/conservative rich are willing to walk the walk, not just talk the talk. they planned ahead, and bought up every media outlet they could. this was decades in the making, gaining real momentum under bonzo reagan, who made it cool to be a bigot.

there are just as many leftwing/liberal rich, but they just talk. they sat on their asses (and piles of money) while the country went down the drain.

the hate mongers put their money where their mouth is.

we don't.

we little people can whine and complain all we want, but it's the money that shapes reality. we can all be in the streets, but if it isn't shown on teevee, it didn't happen.

:shrug:

Financially the very deregulation that brought on the onslaught of Rushbos and hate radio and turned radio into a right wing plantation is crumbling. The large corporates financed their "consolidation" of the public airwaves with large debts that now have come due along with revenues that have shrunk on an average of 20% each year for the past 5 years. There soon may be a lot of dead radio stations as these companies go into the bankruptcy and insolvancy they brought upon themselves.

The GOOP is trying to protect its dying plantation to legislate its own "doctrine"...to mandate that hate radio stations can't change formats, even if there's an ownership change, so they can continue their bile conduit flowing.

Radio as we know it is on its death legs...a new medium is starting to rise...and you're a part of it...sitting right where you can hear a wide variety of opinions and information...your computer. The new generation of wireless radios, IPODs, cellphones and other devices will turn the current radio into a museum piece like the turntable.

Save your pennies...and that's what many stations are now worth. The party and hate radio's glory days are over.