blatham wrote:blatham
Quote:Why would a chilling effect follow? Who or what would be chilled and why?
tico
Quote:Because of the effect it would have on radio broadcasters, fearful of the application of the doctrine, and therefore choosing to not broadcast any political viewpoints entirely, with a net reduction in the broadcasting of any political opinion via the radio. After all, who is going to police the rule? Who is to say what is satisfactory, and what is not?
You merely reassert without any plausible rationale for the original assertion. Why would they be fearful of the application? Why would that act to reduce or moderate any opinion? If Michael Moore and Rush Limbaugh were broadcasting on the same station, would either of them (or the station owner) be suddenly frightened of speaking their mind? Why?
Why would I, as a radio broadcaster, knowing my audience wants to hear, say, conservative talk radio and not leftist talk radio, want to be in the situation where I would have to provide an equal amount of leftist talk radio shows on my station, even though the market won't support it, and doesn't want to hear it? No, I imagine I would instead simply broadcast something they might want to hear .... like hip-hop, easy listening, or sports radio instead.
Why would I, fearful of the fines that might be imposed for a perceived violation, want to get in the position of having my broadcasts scrutinized by the FCC for possible transgressions?
And using a mindset you ought to be famiiiar with, wouldn't I, as a leftist radio broadcaster, be concerned that the Fairness Doctrine might be unfairly wielded by the current administration to try and stifle progressive opinion?
Is it your belief that the Fairness Doctrine resulted in a net increase in political opinion on the airwaves?
BTW, under the Fairness Doctrine, if a radio broadcasts a sports program, does it mandate they broadcast, say, a cooking show? Where do you draw the line on this idiocy?
Quote:blatham
Quote:There's a substantial period of time where the FD was in place. Do you have any grasp of the situation in that period of time?
tico
Quote:Yes. Do you have a grasp of the situation that lead to the discontinuation of the policy?
How old are you? How many years of mature life and media awareness during the period when the Act was in place do you draw from? I do have some grasp on the factors leading to repeal. When I get a bit of time to refresh my memory and make sure I have the data right, I'll lay them out here.
Yes, you're older than me Bernie. You'll always have that.
Quote:blatham
Quote:Why would there be fewer talk radio shows? How would that happen?
tico
Inadequate facts or reasoning to make the argument.
Inability to recognize the argument being made.
Quote: blatham
Quote:Does the number of talk radio shows show a correspondence with diversity of viewpoint? Would 500 air americas look good to you?
Quote:I believe the marketplace ought to drive this, not the government. If liberal talk radio cannot survive on its own, why should it survive at all? After all, you leftists still have the majority of the newspapers.
As I pointed out, absolutism in such community matters is almost never the way in which we decide to operate because of competing community values and interests. The "newspaper" claim you make, again, has the intellectual depth and discipline behind it as sits behind any slogan. If you research and deliver up for me the ratio of daily papers around the US (or some significant set of them) which editorialized for Bush in 2000 and 2004 compared with editorials supporting his opponents, I'll begin to assume you are just lazy and happy with your slogans.
You never did sufficiently answer my question about whether the FD ought to be applied to newspapers' editorial pages. Your response is that the NYT has a token conservative or two that are permitted to publish an article every so often ... and that's a good thing. But the publisher of the Times is very left wing, and that mindset is shared and/or trickles down to the editors and reporters of the paper. The result is a newspaper that is very left. You speak often of fidelity to truth, but you rarely if ever acknowledge that the NYT is far left, and that it slants its news articles to the left. It does so because that is the newspaper culture. The Sowell piece that nimh was complaining about discussed the circling of wagons around Kerry. That was evident in the choice of headline by the NYT. Something to the effect of, "Bush Criticizes Kerry," rather than "Kerry Criticizes Troops." The NYT has a leftist agenda. But if your argument against the application of the FD to newspapers relies on the relative number of newspapers available to the readers in a community, as opposed to the number of radio stations, you must know there are far more radio stations in my community than there are newspapers.
Your claim that newspapers aren't leftist is tired and strained. On another thread, long ago, I provided evidence that the NYT admitted it was liberal, and provided links to the polls of newspaper reporters who overwhelmingly indicated they were liberals. (I can try and dig up those A2K links if you would like.) Your allegience to the notion that the NYT and the majority of newspapers in the US are anything but leftist, ill-suits your claim that you have an open mind to the truth as opposed to your preconceived viewpoint.
Quote:blatham
Quote:From a regulation viewpoint, is market demand the sole proper determinant of what the air waves ought to carry? What about pornography? Snuff films? What establishes the proper area or limit of government interference?
tico
Quote:Lofty questions, blatham, well beyond the scope of the issue we're discussing -- whether a company ought to be able to determine where to spend its advertising dollar. I don't have a problem with limitations on the broadcasting of pornography or snuff films. Do you?
I've already said much earlier that there is a compelling liberty interest in allowing advertising dollars to flow where advertisers desire. That's no longer the subject of discussion. I almost hesitate to suggest that your information diet makes it almost a certainty that you would mistake relevance for loftiness.
If you feel advertisers ought to be able to sponsor the programs they wish, it seems that you disagree with the thrust of the original article you posted, which was critical of the corporations that decided to drop Air America.
I suppose this was an attempt on my part to remind you whence we came in this discussion. You initially posted an article that was critical of a number of corporations that had decided they did not want to be seen as supportive of Air America, which lead to a discussion of whether the government ought to force radio broadcasters to play Air America or Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh in order to achieve some equality. (Again, a position one would expect a leftist to take, since it appears Air America has very little following, and will not survive on its own.) So, if you want to talk about relevance, we have gotten far afield of the original proposition.
Quote:blatham
Quote:Ought there to be any limits on media ownership/monopolies? why?
tico
Quote:To a very limited degree, because the broadcast market is finite. But because of the increasing number of broadcasters in the market, it isn't possible to monopolize the market today. How many channels do you have on your TV? How many stations on your radio dial?
This is a common argument, and it has merit. I need to understand this better than I do presently. But the number of "media outlets" or "opinion sources" isn't the proper measure where some substantial proportion of those 'outlets' are heard by relatively very few (I read perhaps five or six blogger posts a week, for example) and in contrast, a very few sources are attended to by many. It is a bit like standing in a filled auditorium where everyone is yelling but one person has a megaphone.
So, under that analysis, you would agree, would you not, that the NYT is a concern because of the vast circulation numbers it has? It has a very be megaphone, while the Post is yelling on the street corner?
But that thinking is flawed. Because while the NYT enjoys a large circulation, the consumer has the easy option of buying the Post instead of bying the Times. Just as you have the easy option of reading an obscure blogger with a relatively small audience, as opposed to a very popular blogger. Your choice, not the government's.
Quote:blatham
Quote:As to the difference between broadcast media and papers... Quote:
This doctrine grew out of concern that because of the large number of applications for radio station being submitted and the limited number of frequencies available, broadcasters should make sure they did not use their stations simply as advocates with a singular perspective. Rather, they must allow all points of view. That requirement was to be enforced by FCC mandate
http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/F/htmlF/fairnessdoct/fairnessdoct.htm
tico
Quote:So you do not think newspapers (overwhelmingly liberal) ought to be fair, just radio talk shows (overwhelmingly conservative). How convenient.
No. I don't think that. I think it a very good thing indeed that the NY Times, for example, has David Brooks and Frank Rich. I think it a very good thing indeed that PBS News always (and that is 'always') brings in plural viewpoints. The difference in the two media, perhaps no longer so important, is available bandwidth or real estate and the acknowledged benefit in ensuring plurality within that narrower realm.
Another point that rises here relates to quality. That is, care as regards facts and truth. Or, to put it another way, motivation to broadly inform as contrasted with motivation to assist in the electoral success of one party or one ideology. As I said earlier, the wikipedia entry on propaganda is very good. One of the elements which it properly addresses in its description of propaganda is the presence/absence of logical fallacies. My experience is that there is likely no more valuable measure or indicator of community-destructive "information" than how full of, or free from, logical fallacies that information source shows itself to be. "Right" or "left" isn't really what you ought to be looking at.
But what are we talking about here? Political talk radio (Hannity, Limbaugh, Air America, etc.) is hardly a champion of facts and truth. It is not a pinnacle of journalism. It is the bloviated opinions of Rush Limbaugh, the spittle-flying rantings of Randi Rhodes, the soapbox sermons of O'Reilly, the quirky ravings of Al Frankin. Whether the average listener is interested in information or entertainment is of no matter. If they choose to listen to Al Frankin for their news -- or Jon Stewart and the Daily Show -- they have the choice to do so.
The government should not be in the business of dictating the content of the media, and I am surprised that you, a supposed champion of the idea of keeping the government out of the marketplace of free thinking, would be advocating otherwise.
