Socializing the Free Market of Ideas
In response to the Center for American Progress's hit piece on talk radio imbalance, various Senators have expressed support for resurrecting the Cold War era "Fairness doctrine" which requires equal airtime for opposing points of view. Senator Feinstein (D-CA) specifically rejects she said they wanted a legislative fix for conservative talk radio, but still suspiciously supports the fairness doctrine as does Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL). Senator Kerry (D-MA) has also expressed his support.
The underlying notion is that somehow conservative talk show hosts and conservative radio owners have colluded to produce an effective monopoly on talk radio. Instead of bringing anti-trust charges, they've decided to try to regulate it. They conveniently forget the frequent attempts (and failures) of left-wing radio to get and stay on the air. The fact that there have been so many left-wing radio shows that make it on the air (but eventually fail) shows that market entrance is not difficult.
There is a latent idea that the public is unable to come to the "correct" conclusions on policy because talk radio is indoctrinating them. This vicious, un-American and treasonous idea is unworthy of political debate in this country. People can be trusted to make up their own minds and much research indicates that people listen to conservative talk radio not to make up their minds, but because their minds are already made up. If people can't be trusted to make their own minds up, then we ought to be having a discussion on repealing the right to vote, not about media ownership.
One thing to notice is that the market of news and opinion is not synonymous with AM radio. There is the internet, television, movies, podcasting, print, books and lectures. While conservatives do apparently dominate talk radio, liberals dominate television, movies and certainly academic lectures. If one doesn't want to listen to AM radio, they can turn on the TV, surf the internet, or listen to a podcast. There is nothing even approaching a limitation of the flow of information.
Yet, the fairness doctrine is only to apply to talk radio which is obviously an ideological-based attack on certain speech. It is no mistake that Democrats are the voices supporting this (though to be fair certain Republicans are warm to the idea because politicians always like silencing criticism). The resistance to "immigration reform" (which is essentially legalizing at least 12 million illegal immigrants and then not addressing the problems that caused the issue in the first place) was based on talk radio and the cognizanti don't want the influence getting in their way.
As a compromise measure, if we are going to enact a "fairness doctrine" for the radio waves, we should do so also for television. Let's have fairness on NBC, ABC and CBS which are also transmitted over the air. Let's have fairness on the movies shown on those channels so that they fairly represent all viewpoints instead of the latent left-wing propaganda that animates Hollywood. Let's have fairness in the various sitcoms that all portray fast and loose morals. We could have real family-friendly entertainment again.
We could also apply the fairness doctrine to the Internet to balance left-wing biases outlets such as Wikipedia and the Daily Kos. Let's apply the fairness doctrine to colleges and the classroom where indoctrination is most prevalent (and most left-wing). The possibilities are endless and the lawyers could be well-employed. Let's empower the Family Research Council to litigate fairness on all our media outlets.
The "fairness doctrine" is a relic of the past for a reason which will accomplish little more than stifling speech and more accurately stifle only certain ideological forms of speech. In their benevolence, Democrats will allow conservatives to have "free speech" as long as they are not allowed audiences. Unfortunately for them, "free speech" doesn't work that way. The free market of ideas doesn't need to be socialized by those who would pre-ordain the ideas that we are to hold.
Excellent point, though I’m not sure we can trust people to make up their own minds. Unfortunately, I’ve grown up in a town that was politically inactive, where people’s minds were pre-occupied with other things, and it was easier and less exhausting for folks to trade sound-bytes at the dinner table, rather than reason out their own opinion; and this is the root of the problem, “everyone has an opinion…” but few have reasons for them.
This should be a discussion about voting. The founding fathers appearantly didn’t trust people to make good decisions, either. Though this was in an era before widespread public educaiton, its debatable whether the general public is intelligent and thoughtful enough to make good decisions on policy.
Comment by Jeffrey Horn | July 12, 2007
This reveals the totalitarian nature of such advocates. It would be a shame to regulate free speech.
Comment by Freedom Now | July 19, 2007
Bush revokes habeas corpus, spies on citizens without warrants, rigs the DOJ to fix elections, tortures innocent people, chooses which laws to follow and which to ignore, ejects dissenters from his rallies, and flips Congress the bird daily — and THE LEFT is totalitarian?
I want some of what you’ve been smoking.
Comment by Splash | July 24, 2007
[...] (blogs of course would be exempt since they are not transmitted via publicly-owned airwaves). Mr. Bambanek himself hypocritically stated (read the whole post… it’s classic*): The “fairness doctrine” is a relic of [...]
Pingback by Bambanek and Illinois Review just don’t get it « Illinois Reason | July 24, 2007
OK, I agree that we shouldn’t reinstate an actual fairness doctrine about “viewpoints” as such. Your argument though is not the best, because 1. Something (like indoctrination effectiveness) is not proven untrue because it is embarrassing, even to the great “public” and 2. It could be that a large number of listeners actually want for variety that is hard to find due to monopoly issues. However, I do think we should require a certain amount of local content to keep an FCC license, that previous more stringent market concentration rules should be reinstated.
Finally, if you think Kos deserves regulation due to their political activity (and REM the comment above about blogs not technically being on public airwaves), why not many other political blogs as well? How about Instapundit, Powerline, Redstate (which kicks you off if you criticize them, how about this one (since even though you don’t really say which party you prefer, it is clear which faction you prefer.)
tyrannogenius
Comment by Neil B. | August 6, 2007
Sorry, dude - YOU are a relic of the past, regardless of whether the fairness doctrine will be reinstated. What is really needed is not fairness doctrine but some mandatory non-partisan fact-checking procedure for media outfits that want to bill themselves as “news” rather than “entertainment,” because right now The Daily Show is more factually accurate than Fox News, and the Onion is more factually accurate than your blog.
Comment by Fluffy the Cat | September 6, 2007