The Stop Rush [Limbaugh] Campaign

Wall Street Journal ^ | Sept 12, 2003 | Editorial

[RatherBiased.com]

I think the article is talking about the Republicans in Congress who seem to have taken a left turn on this issue. Apparently some large right-leaning groups, such as the NRA, fear the new FCC decisions and their lobbyists are vocal in their opposition.

I do not understand their thinking at all.

The reason many right-leaning groups (esp. the NRA) dislike relaxing of the FCC regulations is that they're afraid that if smaller market TV/radio stations are bought up by large media corporations run by liberals (such as Tribune, NY Times, WashPost, Viacom, etc.) they will have a harder time running politically incorrect advertisements and such.

To a degree, this fear is correct since in a certain sense, large media corporations do not operate have to respond to the free market because of their size. A good example of this is the broadcast television networks. If ABC, CBS, or NBC decided to present news in a consistently unbiased manner, it would undoubtedly bring them success as FNC has shown. But this doesn't happen because, as former GE CEO Jack Welch argued, the network news divisions are extremely puny portions of the overall revenue pies of Disney, Viacom, and GE.

So any executive who'd like to make his network news more fair generally avoids doing so because to attempt to do so would generate a lot of negative publicity for very little potential economic gain.

Nor is it just the case with the news divisions only. It's also the same reason why you never see sitcoms or dramas with conservative themes while many shows have liberal themes in them.

The issue is a difficult one to sort out and far more complex than the WSJ makes it out to be and there are both positive and negative aspects of the Senate's actions.

_mws_

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Under the First Amendment the government isn't supposed to presume to tell us what we have to think is important. We have to sort that out for ourselves.

Trouble is, by and large the people are lazy enough to let a Walter Cronkite do that for them. And a Walter Cronkite only exists when the government suppresses his competition. The FCC created broadcasting by suppressing competition from all but a few licensees, and by a "fairness doctrine" which in fact transferred the "establishment" nature of NY Times journalism to broadcasting, magnifying it with the imprimatur of the government.

If you sued the FCC over the issue of broadcast journalism's leftist bias, journalism would fight a PR war against you. And most judges--most Supreme Court justices--would be tempted to truckle to journalism for fear of negative, and hope of positive, "ink." But on the merits, the fact that broadcast journalism agrees with print journalism is no defense against a charge of bias--the First Amendment protection of the press makes the press presumptively irresponsible. If you can't be forbidden to say what you think, what you say can be wrong.

But since the FCC does have the obligation to apply "public interest" criteria to its licensees, there will aways be the temptation to discriminate against the speech of the honest--who lay out their perspective openly, announcing that they are conservative--and in favor of the arrogant and sneaky, who insinuate (and may be foolish enough to believe) that they are "middle of the road."

And why does the FCC have the obligation to judge what is broadcast? Simply because it engages in unconstitutional censorship in order to create the centralized broadcasting stations which you have the right to shut up and listen to, but no right (in unconstitutional FCC law) to compete with. In constitutional principle, then, the FCC should be abolished or, failing that, subjected to strict scrutiny to assure equality of access to government assistance in publishing speech. An obligation which, if enforced, would presumably look like a C-Span open phones session without rationing of conservative calls. That is, conservative speech would predominate.

Given the left-wing disposition of print journalism, the judges who enforced any such regimen would be subject to the sort of calumny that only Clarence Thomas has heretofore endured. The issue is whether the court could craft and enforce a remedy which would insulate it from the resulting undue influence . . .

[The Raven]

... if they could ever muster enough courage to be an enemy of anyone

You know --I feel the same way....but secretly wish the 'Pubs stay above board and professional. It makes the Dems whining stand out more.

Trouble is ..... the Dem's tactics have worked for so long...they're not going to stop.

[The Raven]

>>Under the First Amendment the government isn't supposed to presume to tell us what we have to think is important

Yes...you nailed it. But liberals reinterpret the Constitution for current thinking (which is always socialism and Democrats in charge of everything).

One of my rainy day projects is to rewrite the first ten amendments in today's English (as intended by the founders).

[razorback-bert]

Like many people in "flyover country", I have a satellite dish and don't get ABCNBCCBS anyway.

Ditto, MNF is the only reason, I turn on over the air TV and for only one night a week, 16 weeks a year. I have been on satellite since they came out and don't think the beltway crowd understand the world has changed.

Every man has a printing press,TV studio, radio and access to a national forum, via the internet.

[Itzlzha]

yep - the 'pubies often get pushed by Rush and his listeners to do things that they normally wouldn't do. Limbaugh is the "moderate" Republicans worst enemy

BUMP for some logic and TRUTH!

[Let's Roll]

Rush has just announced that he's going to get into the FCC fairness doctrine issue today and will probably be asking for our help - gotten off on a hurricane tangent but will get back to the FCC thing shortly.

Keep this bumped.

[OXENinFLA]

TURN HIM ON NOW!!

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

liberals reinterpret the Constitution for current thinking (which is always socialism and Democrats in charge of everything).

. . . which is the complete subversion of the Constitution as ratified.

One of my rainy day projects is to rewrite the first ten amendments in today's English (as intended by the founders).

Have you seen my opus on the First Amendment?

[anniegetyourgun]

Will write to my local congresscritters next week on this.

BUMP!

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Rush makes the point that there are an order of magnitude more talk radio stations without the "fairness doctrine" than there were with it.

The FD is about consensus. It is about the suppression of dissent.

[Alissa]

What was the web site Rush talked about for sending letters to Congress - something like stopmedia.org, but that's not it.

Shocked that Kay Bailey Hutchison and Trent Lott are the Republicans who would support the Fairness Doctrine!

[Let's Roll]

I think we need to do it TODAY - Rush said coming up in senate Monday.

Here is a link that Rush just gave to stop this:

www.stopmediaregulation.org

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Rush mentioned a site that is wired to email your congresscritter:

http://www.stopmediaregulation.org/

[anniegetyourgun]

Thanks for that - will do it this afternoon.

[Let's Roll]

BUMP!

[Timesink]

The (UN)Fairness Doctrine will NEVER be revived. If Congress passes it (doubtful), and Bush signs it (extremely doubtful), it is almost 100% certain that the SCOTUS will nuke it as unconstitutional. That's why the FCC dumped it back in the mid-1980s: Because the SCOTUS said then that the moment technology made it possible for people to obtain information and opinions from more sources than just broadcast radio, TV and newspapers, it would become unconstitutional and would be struck down. The FCC saw what was coming and happily repealed the regulation (it was the Reagan Administration, after all).

[PogySailor]

Speechless....

[Uncle Hal]

I find it inconceivable that the GOP, in control of both houses and the white house, would let the fairness doctrine be reinstated. It just does not make any sense. The conservative commentators on radio today have done as much as anybody else to put the GOP where they are today. If the Dems are permitted to bring the fairness doctrine back then there is no hope for the GOP. You know, if and when the dems control everything they will do everything to bring back an even stronger fairness doctrine.

[leadpenny]

Imus in the Morning! Radio and TV (MSNBC) interviews for grown-ups. The only person who is as good at interviewing is Brian Lamb.

But I understand - to each his (or her) own. For my money, however, there ain't nothing more adult and entertaining than the I-Man in the Morning.