talk radio/free-speech dead (if O wins)

Is Talk Radio Doomed?
America Talks ^ | 10/19/08 | David Zublick

Posted on Sunday, October 19, 2008 1:30:34 PM by AmericaTalks

A talk radio host in Pittsburgh was reprimanded by his employer on the air for being too critical of Barack Obama. KDKA-AM 1020 host Kevin Miller was silenced after his executive producer P.J. Kumanchik read a statement by CBS Radio accusing him of being unfairly biased against Obama. Then he offered the listeners to Miller's show an on-air apology saying "We want to apologize to listeners who have found your show offensive."

Then Kumanchik offered Obama three hours of airtime on KDKA in Miller's time slot. Miller, a Marconi Award nominee and former Army Reserve journalist, was accused of featuring guests who were not objective when reporting information about Obama. One of his guests, Dr. Jerome Corsi was interviewed about his investigation of Obama's connections to opposition leader Raila Odinga in Kenya. Corsi is the author of The Obama Nation, and Miller referred to him as a "true patriot".

Miller also expressed concern that the Obama campaign is attempting to silence his critics in talk radio. He said "Well Dr. Corsi, what scares me is, we've seen this from the Obama campaign, that they clearly target people such as yourself, talk radio stations – whether it's WGN or others or people like myself – that speak out," he said. "And if [Obama is] elected, we're going to have a different chorus when it comes to discourse in this country."

That is the absolute truth. Obama, along with his pals Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid would like nothing more than to bring back the Fairness Doctrine, the former policy of the Federal Communications Commission that required broadcasters to present all sides of an issue. It was the abolishment of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987 that spawned talk radio as we know it today. If Pelosi, Reid and their buddies in congress are able to re-implement the doctrine, talk radio will cease to exist. Our right of free speech will disappear. The face of political discourse in this country will forever be changed.

It would appear, however, that KDKA management and CBS have decided not to wait for the Fairness Doctrine to return. They have instead gone ahead and muzzled one of their own hosts for expressing his opinions about Barack Obama, and having guests who paint a less than flattering view of "The One". Are they doing so out of fear?

People should be very concerned about this development. If Obama is elected president and the Democrats retain their control of both houses of congress, talk radio, the blogosphere, conservative print media will all be shut down.

Just another thing to keep in mind as we go to the polls on November 4th.

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Yes, trotting out the Fairness Doctrine and dusting it off and then cramming it through a Pelosi/Reid Congress would be high on the BHO to-do list. The messiah hates FOX News, so he may have to amend the old bill a little to accomodate his wishes.

You're deep into the nightmare scenario here . . . but . . . I'm not one of them, but there are millions of talk-radio listeners who are well-educated and well-off. The military is part of their core audience as well. I'm sure you can connect the dots . . .

From NYP

DEMS GET SET TO MUZZLE THE RIGHT

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By BRIAN C. ANDERSON

Posted: 4:51 am
October 20, 2008

SHOULD Barack Obama win the presidency and Democrats take full control of Congress, next year will see a real legislative attempt to bring back the Fairness Doctrine - and to diminish conservatives' influence on broadcast radio, the one medium they dominate.

Yes, the Obama campaign said some months back that the candidate doesn't seek to re-impose this regulation, which, until Ronald Reagan's FCC phased it out in the 1980s, required TV and radio broadcasters to give balanced airtime to opposing viewpoints or face steep fines or even loss of license. But most Democrats - including party elders Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry and Al Gore - strongly support the idea of mandating "fairness."

Would a President Obama veto a new Fairness Doctrine if Congress enacted one? It's doubtful.

The Fairness Doctrine was an astonishingly bad idea. It's a too-tempting power for government to abuse. When the doctrine was in effect, both Democratic and Republican administrations regularly used it to harass critics on radio and TV.

Second, a new Fairness Doctrine would drive political talk radio off the dial. If a station ran a big-audience conservative program like, say, Laura Ingraham's, it would also have to run a left-leaning alternative. But liberals don't do well on talk radio, as the failure of Air America and indeed all other liberal efforts in the medium to date show. Stations would likely trim back conservative shows so as to avoid airing unsuccessful liberal ones.

Then there's all the lawyers you'd have to hire to respond to the regulators measuring how much time you devoted to this topic or that. Too much risk and hassle, many radio executives would conclude. Why not switch formats to something less charged - like entertainment or sports coverage?

For those who dismiss this threat to freedom of the airwaves as unlikely, consider how the politics of "fairness" might play out with the public. A Rasmussen poll last summer found that fully 47 percent of respondents backed the idea of requiring radio and television stations to offer "equal amounts of conservative and liberal political commentary," with 39 percent opposed.

Liberals, Rasmussen found, support a Fairness Doctrine by 54 percent to 26 percent, while Republicans and unaffiliated voters were more evenly divided. The language of "fairness" is seductive.

Even with control of Washington and public support, Dems would have a big fight in passing a Fairness Doctrine. Rush Limbaugh & Co. wouldn't sit by idly and let themselves be regulated into silence, making the outcome of any battle uncertain. But Obama and the Democrats also plan other, more subtle regulations that would achieve much the same outcome.

He and most Democrats want to expand broadcasters' public-interest duties. One such measure would be to impose greater "local accountability" on them - requiring stations to carry more local programming whether the public wants it or not. The reform would entail setting up community boards to make their demands known when station licenses come up for renewal. The measure is clearly aimed at national syndicators like Clear Channel that offer conservative shows. It's a Fairness Doctrine by subterfuge.

Obama also wants to relicense stations every two years (not eight, as is the case now), so these monitors would be a constant worry for stations. Finally, the Democrats also want more minority-owned stations and plan to intervene in the radio marketplace to ensure that outcome.

It's worth noting, as Jesse Walker does in the latest Reason magazine, that Trinity Church, the controversial church Obama attended for many years, is heavily involved in the media-reform movement, having sought to restore the Fairness Doctrine, prevent media consolidation and deny licenses to stations that refuse to carry enough children's programming.

Regrettably, media freedom hasn't been made an issue by the McCain campaign, perhaps because the maverick senator is himself no fan of unbridled political speech, as his long support of aggressive campaign-finance regulation underscores. But the threat to free speech is real - and profoundly disturbing.

Brian C. Anderson is editor of City Journal and co-author, with Adam Thierer, of "A Manifesto for Media Freedom," just out from Encounter Books.

Some other recent censorship examples.

http://www.censurebachmann.com/

http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/16952/


Glen Beck

Republican Congresswomen Michelle Bachman