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| Equal Time for Equal Minds | |
Last Thursday, on his unwatched and unwatchable MSNBC television program, Equine Ed Schultz stepped into his Leftist Wayback Machine for a little retro-censorship. With the intent of bringing it back to the future.
Having first called for a reimposition of the alleged "Fairness" Doctrine the week prior on his unlistened to and unlistenable radio show, Schultz took his censorious intentions to his tens of viewers on the tube. (He is doing all of this after making fun of us in 2008 for concerning ourselves with the Doctrine's return.)
Schultz made his latest call for "fairness" by citing the patently absurd 2007 "report" The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio. Which was co-published by the George Soros-funded Leftist "think" tanks Center for American Progress and (the Marxist-founded) Free Press.
We have in fact dismantled this "report"for its deep-seated and inherent fraudulence. It asserts that talk radio is too conservative - and that we need oppressive government regulations aplenty to remedy the situation.
However, it cooked the books from the outset - excluding uber-liberal National Public Radio (NPR) from their analysis pool and then drawing their fraudulent conclusion.
It was co-authored by the Hugo Chavez-loving, "white people" need to be forced to "step down" "so someone else can have power" asserting Mark Lloyd - who is now the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)'s first ever "Chief Diversity Officer." Just one of the many honest brokers involved in this wholly dishonest endeavor.
The so-called "Fairness" Doctrine is the only portion of the Age of Ronald Reagan that Schultz and the Left wishes to see reborn.
It went away in 1987. After two years of exhaustive analysis of the Doctrine and it's effect on radio, the FCC reached an inexorable and obvious conclusion - that it stifles free speech. They voted unanimously to stop enforcing it.
The twenty-three years since have proven the FCC right. There were roughly 100 talk radio stations then, and more than 2,000 today. That is a quantifiable unstifling of speech. Probo quod expertus.
Radio station owners and programmers, being businessmen, have a desire to turn a profit. And they'll put on the air whomever helps them do so. As the twenty-three years post-"Fairness" Doctrine transpired, talk radio hosts of all stripes were given a shot to do their thing.
And when it came to political talk, the same thing happened again, and again, and again - conservative hosts garnered listeners and made money, liberal hosts did not.
More than two decades later, these same radio professionals are doing what they've always done - giving their audiences what they want. And the American people want conservative talk - LOTS of it. And have little interest in the liberal alternative.
We arrived at this supposed "structural imbalance of political talk radio" as the result of the free market doing its thing - supply meeting demand. NOT as the result of some grand conspiracy.
And this "report" that Schultz cites as evidence of the need for the Doctrine's return specifically states that it alone is not enough to silence free speech - oops, I mean make the airwaves "fair":
The Fairness Doctrine was most effective as part of a regulatory structure that limited license terms to three years, subjected broadcasters to license challenges through comparative hearings, required notice to the local community that licenses were going to expire, and empowered the local community through a process of interviewing a variety of local leaders...
Simply reinstating the Fairness Doctrine will do little to address the gap between conservative and progressive talk unless the underlying elements of the public trustee doctrine are enforced, in particular, the requirements of local accountability and the reasonable airing of important matters.
Hello localism boards and their broadcast license challenges. Where the local reps of La Raza, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), ACORN (or whatever they're calling themselves today) and other upstanding outfits can band together to harrangue conservative stations and threaten their licenses.
Hello "diversity" broadcast license challenges - overseen by Diversity Czar "White People (Must) Step Down" Lloyd.
We are told by Obama and Co. that the behemoth, obtrusive, oppressive health care bill that we were just force fed isn't behemoth, obtrusive and oppressive enough. That it's just the first of multiple steps towards achieving their intent of total domination - er, "reform."
And the "report" Equine Ed cites says the reimposition of the Doctrine is just the first of multiple steps towards achieving their intent of total censorship - er,"fairness."
For the Left, too much control of the American people is never enough.
