Do you believe the Fairness Doctorine is really fair?

The public makes this decision every day when they turn their radios or TVs on. That's the point. The decision has already been made.

There are many musicians who would beg to differ with you. But the point stands. It is not some diversion. The argument is about what a radio station should be required to make available.

I am not framing it as a free speech issue. I am saying it is a marketplace issue.

All sides of the argument currently have access. Nothing is preventing a liberal from getting a show other than his ability to gain and hold an audience.

This is a great argument. Let me explain. Clear Channel in Denver has both liberal and conservative. There's your "fairness" and it isn't even mandated.Isn't "talking from both sides of their mouth" what you want? That's what the fairness doctrine is.

That's a different issue. And I do prefer local programming.

The listeners will let CC know by their listening habits. I don't think the government should be involved in that.

Do you think the FCC should have stepped in to monitor MSNBC, CNN, and Fox during 2008 to evaluate their programming and tell them what they must air? I don't.

I am not afraid of anything. That's my point. Let the marketplace decide. You seem to be the one who is afraid. You seem afraid that if the government doesn't force liberals to be put on the air that no one will listen to them.

Why are you afraid to let it be about ideas that people want to hear? With all the conservative radio, liberals still won. So perhaps Rush's old point (I don't know if he still makes it) is true: He is the balance.

Don't you believe that if Ed Schultz could gain Rush's audience he would be on every station in the country? I do. People just don't want to listen to him that much.

 

Not even close to making sense. Someone who was "African-American" was not making choices about who they were. Furthermore, the issue you are speaking of is not about what a business can or can't sell (which is what the comment was talking about), but about who a business can or can't sell too. Those are two different issues.

To make your analogy work, you would have to have radio stations who are telling certain people they can't listen to their station because they are black, or oriental, or something.

 

You keep believing that. I already pointed out in another thread that there are people on the left calling for its reinstatement. In your typical fashion you dismissed the facts that I presented, but the facts remain regardless. (http://www.baptistboard.com/showthread.php?t=56618)

OK, let's talk about the grill in my local public park. Should the government be able to regulate what I cook on it? Should they be able to insist that if I cook steaks that I also good a vegetarian alternative?

What about city buses that have advertising on them (not that I like the advertising). Should the government regulate that if there is an advertisement for Colgate that Crest already be advertised?

 

You are contridicting those who have entered posts on how radio stations are there to make money. So they are selling ideas. Of course a person can always just not turn on the radio or that particular station. But, that is also an argument used back in the 1960's, "Well they can go somewhere else." Now you could argue that just like a restaurant if one dish fails to sell they change the menu.

However, I entered the post, not as an argument for or against the topic under discussion, rather I entered it simply because it reminded me of an argument used when I was young concerning the validity of segregation. It is a memory, not an analogy. But it does bring up an interesting question:

Can an idea that is wrong in one instance and time be right in another instance and time?

 

The grill is public property, you food is private property. Rather large difference.

They do regulate advertising, no pornography, no racist, cocaine etc. advertising. Of course, legal problems are no problem and if a company wants they can advertise.

 

Number 1: What is the perceived problem?
Number2: Does it require a remedy?
Number3: Is there a fair and just remedy?

 

The airwaves are public, the personalities are private. Where's the difference?

Yes...there are regulations such as that on the airwaves and I have no problem with those. You sidestepped the question though. Why is it OK, in your mind, to force a station to provide the voice of a competitor, but not force the bus to provide have a viewpoint of a competitor?

 

If it were fair do you think the leftist democrats would be for it?

 

If the liberals in congress want to make sure that their message is heard, let them pool their own money, buy stations, and broadcast it. Let the public choose who they want to listen to. But, the listening public, for the most part, will not listen to it. If they want listen to that stuff, then Limbaugh and the other conservatives would be out of work and Air America would rule the airwaves.

I don't think more government intrusion is the answer. Then again, I DON'T THINK THERE IS A PROBLEM THAT NEEDS TO EB FIXED!!!!

Again, next thing you know, steakhouses will have to serve only pork (or at least an equal amount of pork to beef). Washington seems to be real good an pushing their pork on everybody else!

 

Not at all. They are selling ideas. They are not preventing people from buying or shopping (which was what your illustration was about).

Again, no. Because in the 1960s, they were prevented from even shopping at a particular store or restaurant. It wasn't that they could pick A or B. They could only pick A. With radio/TV, they can always pick A or B.

I think so, but would certainly entertain arguments to the contrary.

 

Then I hope everyone will please stop saying that ALL the media is biased towards the liberal point of view. Anybody can buy a radio/TV station or a newspaper so the free market determines what news we receive.

 

Everyone says that all the media is biased? I have never heard anyone say that all of it is biased. It is beyond dispute that certain media forms and outlets are biased. I don't think anyone disputes that, but there may be. Recent studies are pretty conclusive.

 

Not all the media is biased, but what gets me is the lack of balance....not on talkshows or opinionated syndicate or private show.... but in the news: Those who own it do control it. It is difficult to impossible to make good judgement when a story is only partially told and left without the facts so that the consumer is left with a one sided conclusion.

In a word............NO........
What it will do to the independants, who fund their own media ventures and work hard to research and verify, and present broader stories or the flip side which isn't generally published by the majors.... is put them out of business. The 'little people' will lose the power of their voice (litigtion, fines, intrusion, oversight) against the giants who have more means and legal facilities to stand their ground and limit the 'doctrine's' control over them!

As it is now...... the independant AM, FM, News, and few television stations which aren't owned by corporate giants, receive their support and funding through the advertisements, gifts, subscriptions and listenership which appeals to the void some think is left by the corporate giants.

Oh.... if it passes....... for a while after it passes........ the corporate giants may make some TOKEN effort to look balance and unbiased.... and win a substantial drift from the audience which supported the independants.... until those independants are no longer viable..... then capture ownership and control of all alternative competitors til few or none were left.

This is one 'regulatory' scheme which works no good...... but it can be argued almost convincingly to sound so good....so fair..... just like its name uses the word FAIRNESS to propogandise it as "good"......that the sheeple accept, believe, and follow what they are told and persuaded for it!

 

The so-called Fairness Doctrine has nothing to do with fairness. Its single purpose is to drive conservative talk show off the air. If a radio station is forced to allow, for example, a 3 hour liberal diatribe [ gratis I believe] to Rush Limbaugh then that station would either go out of business or cancel Limbaugh, and so every other conservative commentator. It was passed twice by the last democrat congress and vetoed by President Bush. O'bama has promised to sign it I believe. I am not sure that this law would stand a court challenge but with Kennedy the swing vote who knows. Of course the Fairness Doctrine might be a boon to satellite radio.

The liberals led by The-Sky-Is-Falling Al Gore started Air America and no one listened.

 

Poor little libbies! No one wants to listen to them. Aaawwwwww

 

So you admit the media is conservative. Most interesting.

Have a blessed day.

 

Talk radio is predominantly conservative. Fox Cable News is Fair and Balanced. CBS, ABC, and CNN TV are liberal. NBC and MSNBC are whacko leftist. Most TV shows and movies have a liberal and anti moral bias if they can work it in

 

This pretty well sums it up!

 

That really did not deserve an answer. It was a dishonest attempt at instigating an argument.