Posted on 06/28/2007 8:29:30 PM PDT by neverdem
After getting hammered for years by the conservative takeover of talk radio, Democrats are fighting back on several fronts — from challenging their foes on air to endorsing the revival of the Fairness Doctrine, the abandoned federal regulation that once obligated broadcasters to balance the political opinion they air.
Elizabeth Edwards, wife of Democratic presidential contender John Edwards, raised the roof on this emerging campaign against conservative punditry by phoning in to MSNBC’s “Hardball” on Tuesday to debate right-wing icon Ann Coulter.
Behind the scenes, prominent Democratic lawmakers are exploring the idea of more regulation. While some of this is aimed at showing the party’s grass-roots activists that their leaders are fighting back, it also provokes a serious debate about the role of government in regulating public airwaves.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Talk radio is now threatened by the resurrection of the Fairness Doctrine. With the near evisceration of McCain - Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Act by the Supreme Court and the failure of the comprehensive "Shamnesty" in the Senate, the neoCOMs will be pushing harder for the Fairness Doctrine. Call talk radio. Use that as an opening to push for a Constitutional Amendment to give Congress term limits.
The House just passed a bill prohibiting the FCC from adopting the Fairness Doctrine, by a 3/1 margin. I don’t think panic is in order.
The idea that the same people who want unfettered freedom of the press want to regulate political points of view in order to have "fairness" is beyond mind-boggling--it's soul-boggling.
Oh, and--term limits, please!
The Fairness Doctrine, an egregious socialist, anti-Constitutional creation to supress free speech, will be appropriately shredded. This Congress NOW KNOWS that the people of this country are not going to have their country pulled apart by socialists, elitists, and those that care only about power and utopian agendas, at the expense of the rights of the people as provided for in our Constitution.
I’ll throw a curveball into the usual debate. I’m in favor of the “Fairness Doctrine”....as long as Anne Coulter or Marc Levin have a chance to sit in every night as a guest anchor on NBS, CBS, or ABS evening news broadcasts.
Or Anne Coulter and Rush have a chance to write half of the opinion pieces in the Washington Post and NY Times op ed pages.
Let’s get it on! Let the American people decide if the failed utopian ideology of Socialism which has failed everywhere it has ever been tried on planet Earth and left nothing but death and destruction in its wake is what the average undecided American wants for their great country.
Did conservatives "takeover" talk radio? Or did they create it? Or open new outlets for it?
Total crock. Ms. Edwards wasn't debating she was "scolding" and demanding.
Let’s let Sean Hannity have half of Michael Moore’s documentary to give the opposing view to socialized medicine BTW.
I love the “Fairness Doctrine”.
“Did conservatives “takeover” talk radio? Or did they create it? Or open new outlets for it?”
I heard Rush say today that when he started nationally in 1989 there were only 120 24/7 talk show stations. Today there are over 2000.
Just think, if the “Fairness Doctrine” applied to the news media just maybe we could get the NYT to balance 1,000s of Abu Ghraib’s panties-on-the-head stories with a couple of stories about the enemy’s dismemberment of live prisoners of war, but alas. . . .
The reason there is such a fertile market for conservative talk radio is because the rest of the media market between broadcast news and major newspapers are completely one sided in favor of left wing liberal socialist propaganda.
The market is already saturated with leftist nonsense. The sponge has absorbed as much as it could.
Al Franken can be funny and entertaining despite his left wing idiocy. Nobody will listen. If they want to hear his nonsense they can just tune in to network news.
Sounds like an expansion of new outlets to me.
The liberals make a mistake doing talk shows.
The should do a humor/musical broadcast. Standup comics, rock n roll, and a decent dj.
They’ll do far better than they’ve done trying to copy a conservative phenomenon.
why is Ann a “right wing icon” but Edwards isn’t a “Democratic left wing presidential contender?” Or Elizabeth Edwards, left wing wife of John Edwards, ..
I agree that the fairness doctrine should be implemented, but it has to include broadcast news: CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, their websites, print news including New York Times, LA Times, Seattle-PI, and hollywood movies.
Why would someone dying of cancer want to spend their last years in the vitriol of bitter politics? I’d think that would speed up the process.
Do you have a link?
I don’t think panic is in order.
Where's the panic?
Heck, let Rush or Anne do shows on NPR. Heck, I'm helping to pay for it, I want my views aired on there.
Yup, let's be completely doctinaire with the Fairness Doctrine.
My FRiend, I fear you are missing the whole point. Rush, Sean have said this themselves. The market for left wing jibberish is already saturated. There is no need for more.
To use your example, if there were nothing on TV and print except silly clowns and stand up comics 24 hours a day, would you listen to another one on the radio in your car? Or would you listen to a serious program that made fun of the clowns just for a change of pace?
I’m not talking about talk radio.
I’m talking about a different format altogether if they want to get their kind of people to listen to their kind of stuff.
You’re not gonna entice too many with PBS’s: Organic Garden Today, or The Boston Pops in Swaziland.
They’re gonna have to return to a glitzed up music format with humor as their news vehicle, in my opinion.
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