Sponsor of the Gore, Daschle and Durbin Radio Show...
Posted on 12/23/2002 4:05:51 AM PST by rhema
It is high time for the Federal Communications Commission to re-institute its traditional Fairness Doctrine and guarantee equal access for all points of view over the public — that is — our airwaves.
The Fairness Doctrine was scrapped by the FCC in 1987 during a time when Ronald Reagan was out to get the government out of practically every facet of our lives. But the deregulation by the FCC of radio only ensured that mega-media corporations were able to gobble up more and more independently owned stations and then offer up zealots like Rush Limbaugh and what Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., calls Rush wannabes on hundreds of radio stations across the country.
Soon, both local and nationally syndicated Rush wannabes began offering a daily concoction of right-wing politics to a public that largely ignored their local newspapers and relied upon the radio rants for their news.
In some cases, the vitriol came directly from the fax machines of the Republican National Committee. In other cases, the propaganda echoed that written in the Washington Times or on right-wing Internet sites like the Drudge Report, World Net Daily and News Max.
The political misuse of the commercial airwaves was what Al Gore was talking about when he recently told the New York Observer that "the media is kind of weird these days on politics, and there are some major institutional voices that are, truthfully speaking, part and parcel of the Republican Party."
Liberal alternatives cannot be found on the public commercial airwaves. A few liberals, like Jim Hightower, found an outlet on a few public radio stations, but their reach to the general public is worse than Radio Free Europe's during the days of Soviet radio jamming.
After the events of Sept. 11, it can be argued whether the right-wing hosts are actually helping to destroy America's way of life rather than claiming to protect it.
Daschle said the talk-show blatherers create "an emotional movement in this country among some people... who are then so energized as to go out and hurt somebody."
Daschle, it should be noted, was a recipient of deadly anthrax in the mail soon after Sept. 11 when the radio waves were flooded with invective tones of hate and retribution. And it does not help when a Rush wannabe in Boston refers to the soon-to-be Senate minority leader as "Dass-hole."
Rush Limbaugh may be, as Sen. John McCain claimed, a mere "circus clown," but we must recall what happened to one of America's last liberal radio talk show hosts.
In 1984, Alan Berg, who had infuriated a number of neo-Nazis, was shot to death by them in front of his Denver home.
It's not so much the Limbaughs that are the problem but the people they tend to incite to violence. The talk-show hosts who consistently call for "rounding up" foreigners are playing into the hands of many racists and xenophobes and that is what Daschle was talking about when he talked about enraged listeners going out and hurting somebody.
Democratic Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois told National Public Radio that there is "station after station of right-wing screamers."
With Gore, Daschle and Durbin all finally aware of the misuse of the public commercial airwaves by the Republican Party and its rightist allies, the FCC's commissioners must revisit the Fairness Doctrine.
However, time is of the essence because the FCC, under the leadership of Michael Powell, the son of Secretary of State Colin Powell, is considering scrapping even more FCC regulations over OUR airwaves.
Madsen is the Washington correspondent for Intelligence Online and a political columnist for Counter Punch. Distributed by Knight Ridder News Service.
The remorselessly, monolithically liberal Minneapolis Star Tribune probably wouldn't have suffered Ridenour's article to see the light of day.
YEAH, we need more stations just like NPR. /sarcasm
But with the force of judicial fiat, they're the most zealous truth suppressors on the planet, Chicoms included.
Sponsor of the Gore, Daschle and Durbin Radio Show...
He may be vying with Minnesota's ex-governor for that gig.
(Actually, I have it on very good authority -- a member of the Ventura cabinet to whom I spoke yesterday -- that Jesse's more interested in a Hardball-type television show.)
I'm trying to remember: Is NPR the media outlet with the "Fair and balanced. We report; you decide" motto?
And I firmly believe he was dead-on correct. I listen to the local show besides the "big voices" like Rush & Hannity, and you know what? I hear real people, real concerns, and honest opinions... and a lot of stuff that will never be voiced on television, or in national papers. Not because it's rude or wrong or bigoted, but because it doesn't fit the left-wing template of the mainstream media.
Talk radio ( charmingly called "talkback radio" in Australia... ) gives a voice to all us folks in flyover country who are held in such disdain by some.
Listeners surely won't need any soporific other than the show itself.
We should worry about radio networks, but left wing liberal newspaper "networks" spewing socialist, liberal, left wing propoganda, that is OK?
Don't laugh but "Public Broadcasting" already has a "Fairness Doctrine". That's right, they are required by law to be balanced.
(SNORT...I just blew coffee all over)
To Wayne Madsen: I've heard Jim Hightower. Sometimes it's his assumptions that turn me off....sometimes it's his conclusions. In either case I disagree with him. And I think I'm every bit as smart as he is. (I've listened to Rush....he sees things that I don't.)
Besides, radio is a business. If he can't hold an audience then radio stations shouldn't be forced to carry him.
It's the bottom-line, stupid.
Makes sense, as government is a god to liberals.
In the market place of ideas the socialists fail. If no one wanted to listen to conservative talk radio then advertisers wouldn't support it and the station would have to do something else. Doesn't anyone remember the failed attempt of Mario Cuomo?
Liberal alternatives cannot be found on the public commercial airwaves. What the heck then is National Public Ratio? Prime example of why the socialists require the government to force their whacky ideas down citizens throats.
Back in the '60s and '70's, when I started listening to the radio, WERE in Cleveland used the phrase "talk back radio".
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