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Fairness Doctrine, Talk radio

Killing free speech in the name of fairness

By Klaus Rohrich

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Democrats in the U.S. Congress want to counter the powers of talk radio by relaunching the so-called "Fairness Doctrine". In a nutshell, the Fairness Doctrine would force radio and television outlets that broadcast "controversial" programming to devote equal time to opposing viewpoints. The idea behind relaunching the Fairness Doctrine is a thinly veiled effort on the part of the nation's leftists to shut down talk radio, whose luminaries have over the past two decades managed to change the face of American politics.

It's also a blatant assault on the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States in that it will serve to silence those "controversial" views espoused by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham and Dr. Laura Schlesinger. Here's how the Fairness Doctrine would work: Any opinions expressed over the public airwaves, such as Rush Limbaugh's, would be subject to a rebuttal by opposing opinions. The airtime for opposing opinions would have to be provided by the media free of charge in the name of "fairness", hence the term Fairness Doctrine.

The Fairness Doctrine is many things, but fair isn't one of them. By enacting the Fairness Doctrine into law, the Democrats hope to pull a Don Imus on the likes of Rush and his fellow talk radio mavens, as no radio stations would carry their programs if they were being forced to provide free air time for opposing opinions.

The Democrats seems to forget that talk radio is driven by market factors and by far the biggest audiences come from conservative talk programs. They attempted to counter the conservative content of talk radio with their "Air America" radio network, but it's been a dismal failure. Since its inception the network has managed to get aired on 64 stations nationwide as well as on satellite radio, compared to Limbaugh who has nearly 10 times that many stations carrying his show.

The problem is that the Democrats consistently lose in the arena of ideas and now they want to resort to draconian measures in order to level the playing field. Someone might attempt to convince the Democrats to come up with better ideas, rather than to legislate ideas that are at odds with their own out of existence.

One of the proponents of the Fairness Doctrine is California Senator Dianne Feinstein, who claims that in the past when the Fairness Doctrine was law, "there was much more serious correct reporting to people". She claimed talk-radio is one-sided. No one disputes that talk radio is indeed one-sided in that most successful talk-radio programs have audiences that are by and large made up of conservatives. Maybe it should be pointed out to Ms Feinstein that in the past all that "serious correct" reporting was done by the likes of Walter Cronkite, Dan Rather and a plethora of left-leaning biased media personalities that taylored their reporting to suit the party line. Talk radio created a free exchange of ideas and brought many people who felt the media was misleading them together.

The Left has the same opportunities, as do we on the right. If they come up with ideas that are fresh, sound, logical and well thought-out they will likely draw larger audiences and convince people of the validity of their viewpoints. So long as their ideas are rooted in the 1960s and before, they'll never be taken seriously.

Enacting a law that could ultimately stop all public discourse will not result in more people agreeing with ultra-leftist crazies like Ms Feinstein. It will drive them to other venues, such as the Internet. One would think that the Left might have learned from the experience of the former Soviet Union. Outlawing ideas just doesn't work.

The First Amendment guarantees that people like Feinstein and her allies on the left can't silence free speech; no matter what the purported reason. Just in case she's forgotten what the First Amendment actually says, here it is again:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."


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