Corporate Dictatorships

Jul 10, 2007 23:13

Congress Braces for Fight Over Fairness Doctrine
by Rob Hotakainen

WASHINGTON - After conservative radio talk show hosts helped bury an immigration bill, Republican Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott complained that “talk radio is running America.”

Lott suggested a remedy that immediately got talk-show hosts talking: He suggested bringing back the Fairness Doctrine, which would force broadcasters to provide more political balance on the nation’s airwaves. ...

Sen. Jon Kyl, an Arizona Republican, said any attempt to revive the Fairness Doctrine “ought to be dead on arrival.”

“Some Democrats may not like talk radio, but that does not give them the right to use the heavy hand of government to regulate it,” he said.

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Except, of course, that the radio airwaves are owned by the American public. Not that Republicans understand property or anything. (Kyl, incidentally, is a fascist who is obsessed with eliminating habeas corpus...and not just for Guantanamo prisoners. His desire to sub silentio transfer ownership and control of the airwaves to corporations is, in fact, best explained by his fascist views.) Another quote: "'It’s absurd,' said Mike Shanin, a self-described conservative radio talk show host in Kansas City, Mo. Shanin said there’s no doubt that liberals have been left behind in the world of talk radio and that it makes perfect economic sense: 'Look, these are businesses [i.e., corporations], just like newspapers are businesses. If liberal talk worked, it would be on. It’s been tried.'" Not that corporations don't have an interest in making pro-corporate content work, mind you. That interest, rather than simple profit-loss margins, just might explain this: "Talk radio contains 10 times as much conservative [pro-corporate] talk as progressive or liberal talk, according to a study released last month by The Center for American Progress, a research and educational institute that works for 'progressive and pragmatic solutions,' and Free Press, a group that focuses on media competitiveness. The report, called 'The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio,' found that of the 257 news/talk stations owned by the top five commercial stations, 91 percent of the talk was [pro-corporate] conservative, while 9 percent was progressive. Ninety-two percent of the stations did not broadcast a single minute of progressive talk, according to the study."
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