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[greeneyed_devil]

Reagan gave this guy the axe back in the 1980’s, leading to the FCC deregulation that allowed for the rise of conservative talk radio. Now Obama is looking to put him back at the FCC.

Can the Fairness Doctrine be far behind?

Henry Rivera, a longtime radical leftist, lawyer and former FCC commissioner, is expected to lead the push to dismantle

Comments

[rhonan]

Um, it does not take a change in the FCC commissioners to bring the fairness doctrine back. Congress can easily restore it legislatively. Should a member of the FCC commission try to block its implementation, they could then be removed by impeachment.

Besides, saying the fairness doctrine, in and of itself would be used as a weapon to destroy right-wing talk radio is factitious. What it would do is prevent any one station from becoming an ideological island where no dissenting viewpoint is possible. All the fairness doctrine would do is force those stations to provide equal access to dissenting viewpoints, and allow people who have had accusations leveled against them to respond.

Now, that's why I support the fairness doctrine. It is a well known fact that the truth often has a liberal bias, and exposing people to it will make it much harder for them to be brain-dead ditto-heads. Rush, Hannity, and all can not survive in the face of intellectual competition. They can only survive by keeping their listeners from honestly listening to alternative viewpoints. If we can expose their fans to the truth, right-wing propaganda radio will wither and die. No need for us to actually do anything else to kill it.

[blimey85]

What the fuck are you talking about? How is Rush or Hannity keeping anyone from other viewpoints? They aren't on the only station. There is no government run media that you are limited to. Turn the station and watch/listen to something else if you don't like what they have to say.

I'm not even sure how to respond to the whole truth often has a liberal bias bit. I'm not saying that Rush and Hannity are spouting the truth. I don't know if they are or aren't because I haven't listened to either in several years. Nor do I listen to any of the idiots on the left because when you get right to the bottom of it, they are all spouting whatever will get more people to agree with them. In past years the right has done it better, this time the left did it better.

We had a chance to elect McCain, someone I don't really care for but who was the best of the two main choices on election day. Who was it in 2005 that wanted to make changes to both Fannie and Freddie? Was that Obama? Don't think so. Seems like those on the left thought that everything was just fine. Then 3 years later the government has to take them over because they failed. Seems like the truth back then did not have a liberal bias. The liberals were bullshitting us while they were lining their pockets and now look where we are.

And people expect Obama to fix this? Are you fucking high?

Although for the record while I voted for McCain, I don't think he would have fared all that much better in regards to being able to fix the mess. I voted for him because he was one of the few that wanted to fix it back when there was a real opportunity. Thanks to the greedy bastards in Washington (and if you review transcripts you'll find that the overwhelming majority of those who have gotten us into our current financial mess were liberals) here we are.

Anyone who would support something like the fairness doctrine must be a liberal because all of the true conservatives I know are for less government and think the gov has no business telling us how to run our businesses. Last time I checked, both television and radio were made up of mostly businesses, with the few public exceptions like PBS, NPR, or whatever. I could understand the need for someone stepping in to balance things if everything was controlled by one side, but it's obviously not. Even though the current system is working just fine, as far as both sides being able to get their point across, liberals think it's broken and want to fix it. What the fuck? Don't we have better things to worry about than whether or not Obama can run his 30 minute infomercials without having issues from the conservative controlled media?

[rhonan]

Dude, I think, therefore I am a liberal. I am, in fact, the sort your ilk call a flaming left wing liberal. We don't actually expect Obama to fix thing right away, but at least his election insures that the kleptocracy that has been raping the American people blind to fund ever more staggering level of corporate welfair.

Personally, the fairness doctrine is not my prefered solution. I think half of the available broadcast spectum should be allocated to public media required to act in the public interest, and the rest of the space leased to private broadcasters at rates steep enough to keep the public media fully funded.