Media Bias Part II

If you are lost please read the original blog post here

We have to be very careful how we go about it from here. We have members of Congress discussing a return of the "Fairness Doctrine". You can be sure that something Congress calls a "fairness Doctrine" will be anything but. Basically the idea is that if a point of view is presented, then the station airing the points of view must allow for equal amounts of time for rebuttal from the opposing point of view.

2 problems:
1) this is an infringement on free speech in that the government is, in effect, dictating what can and cannot be said on the public airwaves.
2) The airwaves, while being very useful for knowledge dissemination are still an economic proposition, and therefore must be treated as such. The people running talk radio, and for that matter TV, have invested their money on the airwaves and they rightfully expect a return on their investment. The way they do that is by selling ad time. (I'm sure this is nothing new but follow me here). The more people listen to a particular channel, or a particular show, the more the station can charge for the commercial time slot. (Again people are willing to pay more for a slot where more people will hear their commercial). How to they attract listeners? By putting programming on that those listeners want to hear (or in the case of TV what they want to see). If equal programming time must be given to all opposing points of view, then 2 things are happening, 1) the government is dictating what can and cannot be said or played on the radio or TV. (HELLO CHAVEZ?!!?) and 2) the station is being forced to air programming that is not in it's self interest and it's ad sales will drop.

Now if we follow this to it's logical economic conclusion, the station can do 1 of 2 things. It can air the programming it wants, giving equal time to opposing points of view costing them much more money, in terms of commercial airtime sales, lawyers to fight the time battles, etc. eventually going out of business. Or it can just air programming that is offensive to no one. I don't know if anyone listened to AM radio when the fairness doctrine was in effect before, but it was boring as heck. As a result....do you know anyone who listened to talk radio during the late 70's early 80's?

Now take a look at Congress; who is in favour of the "Fairness Doctrine"? The answer is, the people who have been negatively effected by Conservative talk radio. Liberal Democrats. (This is not a rant, it's just me stating my view of the facts) Now, why would the very same people who will carry the "1st Amendment" Banner to the front lines for a student who holds a sign saying "Bong Hits for Jesus" be in favour of the government dictating what can and cannot be said on the airwaves? Because it's politically expedient. Because the Television Media is slanted to the left (No one is arguing this), so if they can get Conservative views off the radio, what's left? Their agenda on CNN. (And boring oldies on AM radio).