Let's discuss the Fairness Doctrine. . .

. . . here.

...while the Fairness Doctrine is likely to be reimposed either by Congress or the Obama FCC. A major goal of the supermajority left would be to shut down talk radio and other voices of political opposition.

this is total bullshit, right? rush and hannity and the rest love to scare their audiences with this shit, and i know it was introduced as a bill at one point... but they're not really going there are they?

― ♪☺♫☻ (gr8080), Friday, October 17, 2008 Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Jordan and Gabbnebb, tell me your bubbes are in Florida

xpost I can believe they would, but would it actually effect Rush (obv it would hit Fox News.)

― Alex in SF, Friday, October 17, 2008 Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

what would be the legislative mechanism here? you cant just pass a bill that says lol no wingnut talk radio

― mr. cool (ice crӕm), Friday, October 17, 2008 Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

"what would be the legislative mechanism here? you cant just pass a bill that says lol no wingnut talk radio"

Well it wouldn't be no wingnut talk radio, it would be that an equal amount of progressive talk radio would have to balance it out.

― Alex in SF, Friday, October 17, 2008 Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

At least that's the theory of Fairness Doctrine.

― Alex in SF, Friday, October 17, 2008 Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

basically, anything with an fcc license has to feature a democrat as often as it features a republican. i think it's a ridiculous idea, and very creepy frankly.

it doesn't even address the larger problem: getting the fcc off of Big Content's jock. we don't need the talk radio stations airing hack democrats every other half hour, we need MORE RADIO STATIONS, of every kind, everywhere

― goole, Friday, October 17, 2008 Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

david brooks otm today, i have to admit:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/17/opinion/17brooks.html?hp

― collardio gelatinous, Friday, October 17, 2008 Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

maybe we should give it its own thread because i dont fully understand the fairness doctrine but that sounds like bullshit to me.

xp

― ♪☺♫☻ (gr8080), Friday, October 17, 2008 Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

is that really the fairness doctrine? wow. bananas.

xp

― the valves of houston (gbx), Friday, October 17, 2008 Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

liberals just need to learn how to do radio better

― ♪☺♫☻ (gr8080), Friday, October 17, 2008 Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

There are a lot of parts of the doctrine, but yeah the idea is that an equal amount of time has to be given to opposing viewpoints.

― Alex in SF, Friday, October 17, 2008 Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

"liberals just need to learn how to do radio better"

Right-o.

― Alex in SF, Friday, October 17, 2008 Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^^^ if the dems take that seriously, expect to have it thrown back at them w/r/t teaching the controversy in schools

xp

― the valves of houston (gbx), Friday, October 17, 2008 Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Uh but there is no controversy.

― Alex in SF, Friday, October 17, 2008 Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

well yeah, but the fairness doctrine, which sounds like a bad idea, would just be another excuse to howl about 'fairness' in american education, at least as it pertains to teaching, like, science. not a good or valid excuse, but that's never stopped them before

― the valves of houston (gbx), Friday, October 17, 2008 Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I think you should read more about the Doctrine. It's not quite as crazy strict as you are presenting it as being. It's more designed to prevent political propaganda from one side from becoming prevalent (like ahem Fox News.) Are there better ways of doing this? Probably there are.

― Alex in SF, Friday, October 17, 2008 Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i'm not "presenting" anything, really, or at least i'm not trying to. pretty obvious that all the information i have has been gleaned from this thread. i mean, i'm very curious to know how legislation to prevent the emergence of partisan media could have anything but a stifling effect on the freedom of speech.

(note we should probably have a separate thread for this)

― the valves of houston (gbx), Friday, October 17, 2008 Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I missed a David Brooks link. Ignore that guy.

The Fairness Doctrine was a policy of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that required the holders of broadcast licenses both to present controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a manner that was (in the FCC's view) honest, equitable, and balanced. The United States Supreme Court has upheld the Commission's general right to enforce such a policy where channels are limited, but the courts have generally not considered that the FCC is obliged to do so.[1] The FCC has since withdrawn the Fairness Doctrine, prompting some to urge its reintroduction through either Commission policy or Congressional legislation.[2]

(bold mine)

Reading this http://www2.freepress.net/docs/talk_radio.pdf right now.

Bandwidth is sorta what makes this complicated, right? Like, since it's a public good?

I think Comcast owning everything in sight is what makes this complicated.

bandwidth restrictions were a bigger technical problem when the laws were written. broadcast and reception wasn't precise enough to have stations sitting next to each other at 90.1 and 90.3. they'd bleed over. so the broadcast space had to be cut up into pretty wide chunks and given away. but now, that's not true, and reasons we have so few stations are entirely political.

like i said up there, requiring the existing few stations to have "balanced" political commentary is crazy, there should just be a lot more of them. cable is a whole other huge mess, i'm not familiar with how that works.

institutional democrats seem to still phear talk radio a lot...

I kind of wonder if, without any NPR or Pacifica stations, the market would create better private liberal talk stations. I mean I don't necessarily think that would be a good idea, but I just wonder if it would happen.

ok so the fairness doctrine isnt forcing anyone off the radio?

Correct.