Thursday, January 18, 2007

The Fairness Doctrine

For the last few days, the Democrats and other assorted liberals have been having a field day. Ever since a Congressman a few days ago suggested a return to the Fairness Doctrine, which required stations to give "equal time" to opposing viewpoints on "controversial" topics, conservatives have been aghast. The topic has been discussed on every talk radio show I've listened to. Why is that? Because talk radio is the only communication medium dominated by conservatives! And you can bet that any new so-called Fairness Doctrine would only apply to talk radio, and not to ABC/NBC/CBS/CNN/NYT/Time/etc. Here's a great post on the topic.

Honestly, do the libs really want to get into viewpoint discrimination? Would this Supreme Court really stand for it?

I hope not.

11 comments:

La Maestra said...

Sigh... There I go, agreeing with you again. Although for me, it's (a) a freedom of speech thing (I prefer to vote with my feet on things like this, thankyouverymuch) and (b) I think it's a slippery slope, and I don't want to start sliding down it.

Maybe I really am becoming more conservative, though. Our most vocally conservative teacher on campus teased me this morning that he was winning me over to the side of reality. Ha.

Oh, and FWIW, I think the liberal/conservative media thing is all bull.

Anonymous said...

If they win this issue, pushing radio stations to conform to their view of "Fairness" based on equal time, the result will probably be that advertisers cut down or eliminate radio from the ad budget. We already support NPR via taxes, which incidentally is the most biased bunch of news since CNN. If they win this issue,what's next-the blogs, the letters to the editors, phone calls, speech? And when that happens, who's the victim and who's the fascist?

Anonymous said...

Its a business problem with a simple solution.

If you want more air time, convince more people to listen to you, get sponsors, market a product that appeals to a base.

Of course, the typical liberal response will be to force people to listen to their shoddy product so their feelings won't be hurt, instead of stepping up and competing.

Anonymous said...

Bill O'Reilly.

Darren said...

Apparently, then, the liberal/conservative thing isn't bull.

But is O'Reilly a newsman, or a commentator?

Anonymous said...

O'Reilly isn't worthy of either title.

On another note, did you see him on The Colbert Report or Colbert on The Factor?

Darren said...

Then why did you bring him up, Eric?

No, I don't have cable so I didn't see either of those shows. I heard clips on the radio this morning and wasn't impressed by either one.

Anonymous said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvBd7sCSC78

Colbert on the Factor

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECbO6jZRzhs

O'Reilly on the Report

La Maestra said...

FWIW, I think the liberal/conservative media thing is all bull.

Two words: Dan Rather.


And that is one person on one (network!) television station. Television news, nonetheless. I rarely waste time with TV news (and I abhor network news) because sound bites piss me off. I follow a variety of news feeds and blogs to see what's being said, then I typically do a bit more quick research of my own if something interests me, so that I can form my own opinion.

Unfortunately, most Americans don't take current events as seriously, but hey, as a teacher, I can only encourage kids to pay attention to the world around them and think critically for 44 minutes a day--what they do once they leave my classroom is their and their parents' responsibility.

I'm one of those teachers who brings in subjects outside of my content area--namely politics and current events (I teach English.) I don't do it often, but I do it when I feel it connects with whatever we are studying. Whenever a discussion turns partisan, I switch to whichever viewpoint is underrepresented and argue that side until I can get kids to at least articulate why it is they support the beliefs they espouse.

Some of my favorite kids (and teachers, actually) to talk with are the very conservative ones--I have a few that really know their stuff politically, and I enjoy getting a different viewpoint and picking their brains and learning from them.

Anonymous said...

O'Reilly is a commentator/entertainer whose staff does some investigative journalism. One of the common tactics of the left in the media realm is to pretend that there is no difference between news and commentary so that they can disparage people like O'Reilly or Rush Limbaugh.

It is the MSM news outlets such as the big three newscasts and the New York times that have all but abandoned any pretense of separating news from opinion. That they continue to deny this, and fail to label "news" stories laden with opinion as opinion says all one really needs to know about their judgement and integrity. Say what you will about O'Reilly, he never claims to be anything other than a commentator, and frequently makes that distinction clear on his program.

It is only because talk radio and cable news have so successfully provided alternate--and all too often, the only factual--outlets for news that liberals are in full battle cry demanding "fairness," which if implemented, would mean nothing less than complete liberal domination of all media outlets.

Anonymous said...

If you want to understand media bias you have to look no further than your local newspaper. I don't know about your paper, but I know the Dallas Morning News is seeking more stories from the wire-siting CNN, Newsweek and others as valid independent news sources. This means that the whole concept of an independent news production is out the door. Newspapers will simply cut and paste the editorial flavor of the week and the opposition side will be buried. Look at your own newspaper and notice which stories are above the fold and which are below. Placement matters, as all advertisers know, and where and how a paper chooses to place a story has a major impact on how it is recieved. Take the immigration issue. On our front pages are stories of the Noble Immigrant Trying Hard to Make It in the States. Buried around page 21 is the story of the retired couple whose neighborhood has been taken over by multiple families living in single family homes and the disentigration of the retirement income the retirees thought they would make from selling their home. If we see this socalled "Fairness" law come into play, what we will see is something similar to the opposition commentary after every presidential speech. In short, it's like watching six year olds argue. And that won't help anyone. It's a blatant grasp to squelch free speech that isn't in line with the Democrat platform. If the Republicans did it, there would be blog after blog calling them nazis and fascists. Where are those people now?