Meet your new thread, same as the old thread.

[SlaveNoMore]

Shape Shifter
Who watches local news?

I do.

Or at least the 20 seconds that always seems to run over into my Seinfeld rerun

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I don't care about talk radio at all. I don't listen to it, and I don't want to. I'd be surprised if many Dems do. I thought the Fairness Doctrine was more of an issue in local elections and smaller media markets where the opposition of a single TV or radio station can go a long way to preventing people from getting their views out.

eta: Here's Dianne Feinstein on the issue:

• With conservative talk radio blasting Republicans and Democrats for their support of immigration reform, Feinstein said she is exploring whether to revisit the "fairness doctrine," which, before being abolished in 1987, required that broadcasters present controversial issues in a balanced manner.
  
  "I think there ought to be an opportunity to present the other side. And unfortunately, talk radio is overwhelmingly one way," Feinstein said. "I do believe in fairness. I remember when there was a fairness doctrine, and I think there was much more serious, correct reporting to people."

link

Let me just say, I've never liked her.

I haven't met a Democrat yet who liked her. How the hell does she keep getting re-elected?

As to her fairness argument, TALK RADIO ISN'T NEWS. It's not a matter of fair reporting. It's a matter of there being a marketplace for certain types of editorializing and there not being a marketplace for others. She may as well try to create "fairness" in the disparity between the purchase of vanilla and chocolate ice cream. We're talking about a purchased and consumed commodity.

How to do we elect these types of people? How? I'm a fucking screwhead from nowehere and I can spot the idiocy and wrongheadedness of this campaign.

I'm getting a drink.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
I do.

Or at least the 20 seconds that always seems to run over into my Seinfeld rerun

"Ten more shot in Philadelphia."

It's always insufficient, and it's always poor people and drug dealers. If we could only get some of those bullets aimed into City Hall.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
I haven't met a Democrat yet who liked her. How the hell does she keep getting re-elected?

She plays to the middle, supporting things like the flag-burning amendment. (This talk-radio thing isn't like her.) She finds a way to get press for ideas like building another Bay Bridge that will strike people who aren't paying attention as fine notions, never mind that they'll never go anywhere.

As to her fairness argument, TALK RADIO ISN'T NEWS. It's not a matter of fair reporting. It's a matter of there being a marketplace for certain types of editorializing and there not being a marketplace for others.

That's exactly the point of the Fairness Doctrine, that different editorial views ought to be represented on the airwaves, which are a public trust. Because spectrum is limited, and owned by the public and only used by stations, they have an obligation to serve the public, and not just the highest bidder. IIRC, anyway.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
That's exactly the point of the Fairness Doctrine, that different editorial views ought to be represented on the airwaves, which are a public trust. Because spectrum is limited, and owned by the public and only used by stations, they have an obligation to serve the public, and not just the highest bidder. IIRC, anyway.

That's interference with free speech. And creepy.

If the left wants to have its competing voice, I say let it build as many stations as it likes and make its voice heard. But to force a station to offer programming its audience has no interest makes me very uneasy.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
That's interference with free speech. And creepy.

It may be creepy, if you're too young or drug-addled to remember how life was before 1985. It is not interference with free speech, since it applies only to broadcasters using spectrum they get from the government.

If the left wants to have its competing voice, I say let it build as many stations as it likes and make its voice heard. But to force a station to offer programming its audience has no interest makes me very uneasy.

No one said it's audience has "no interest." That's silly.

In theory, it's about the public interest, not the left. In practice, there are few Republicans left who have a functional conception of the public interest.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
It may be creepy, if you're too young or drug-addled to remember how life was before 1985. It is not interference with free speech, since it applies only to broadcasters using spectrum they get from the government.



No one said it's audience has "no interest." That's silly.

In theory, it's about the public interest, not the left. In practice, there are few Republicans left who have a functional conception of the public interest.

1. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's most broadcast radio.

2. Forcing the same station that enjoys huge ad revenue from running Limbaugh and his ilk to run Franken is idiotic. If the left could garner an audience, it would have a hold on the airwaves.

In the case, the left and "public interest" are indistinguishable. That most Republicans don't care about the public interest depends on what you define as the public interest. Given that "moving target" nature of the things to be manipulated and effected by the sort of interference Feinstein advocates, it's wise to never engage in it again.

Like I said. Let the liberals build their own stations. They can use union labor.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
That's exactly the point of the Fairness Doctrine, that different editorial views ought to be represented on the airwaves, which are a public trust. Because spectrum is limited, and owned by the public and only used by stations, they have an obligation to serve the public, and not just the highest bidder. IIRC, anyway.

I'm sorry. NPR is not a simple liberal voice because..............

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
it applies only to broadcasters using spectrum they get from the government.

get from the government? I know Al Gore invented the internet, did Roosevelt invent radio waves?

[Not Bob]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
get from the government? I know Al Gore invented the internet, did Roosevelt invent radio waves?

Oh, come on. Do you mean to suggest that because nature created the radio spectrum, government has no power to regulate/sell the right to use it? So much for charging money to see Old Faithful, eh?

Actually, you can thank (in part) Herbert Hoover not FDR for that one. The federal regulation of radio started under his watch as Commerce Secretary. Why? In part because too many people were broadcasting on too limited a spectrum. And there was a version of the fairness act then, too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Radio_Commission

[Not Bob]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
It may be creepy, if you're too young or drug-addled to remember how life was before 1985. It is not interference with free speech, since it applies only to broadcasters using spectrum they get from the government.

AoN, I kinda miss the editorials (and equal time responses) that the local tee-vee news showed in the 1970s. The anchor would look into the camera (from a different angle, so you knew that it was an editorial, and not the news) and smoothly explain why the new overpass was necessary for economic development. Then Paul Harvey would come on.

A couple of weeks later, some landowner would nervously stammer about sacred private property and how the county shouldn't be able to take a parcel of his planned subdivision to build a road to a shopping center owned by cronies of the county commission.

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by Not Bob
Oh, come on. Do you mean to suggest that because nature created the radio spectrum, government has no power to regulate/sell the right to use it? So much for charging money to see Old Faithful, eh?

Actually, Hank's No-Regulation-of-Nature argument is all part of his master plan to justify the legal taking and declaration of the Glorious Independent Nation of Greater Detroit Metroplex Area.

He and his followers will anticipate a bloody Ruby Ridge-style finale, which only increases their surprise when the federal and state government replies, "Whew! Thanks."

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
1. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's most broadcast radio.

2. Forcing the same station that enjoys huge ad revenue from running Limbaugh and his ilk to run Franken is idiotic. If the left could garner an audience, it would have a hold on the airwaves.

In the case, the left and "public interest" are indistinguishable. That most Republicans don't care about the public interest depends on what you define as the public interest. Given that "moving target" nature of the things to be manipulated and effected by the sort of interference Feinstein advocates, it's wise to never engage in it again.

Like I said. Let the liberals build their own stations. They can use union labor.

While I have some doubts about the Fairness Doctrine from a free speech perspective, as well as some doubts about its effectiveness in even achieving its stated goal, I am willing to overcome those doubts sufficiently to have a protracted debate in which Rupert Murdoch spends million of dollars attempting to buy every available member of Congress on either side of the aisle.

In other words, I'm willing to set aside my prinicples to order a hit on Fox, for the sheer entertainment value of it. Watching the hypocrites dance sounds like a good time.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

• GQ: Is there anybody else other than the president who can tell the vice president to shut the hell up?
  
  Dan Bartlett: Maybe the editor of the Corpus Christi Caller-Times.

link

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by Not Bob
AoN, I kinda miss the editorials (and equal time responses) that the local tee-vee news showed in the 1970s. The anchor would look into the camera (from a different angle, so you knew that it was an editorial, and not the news) and smoothly explain why the new overpass was necessary for economic development. Then Paul Harvey would come on.

A couple of weeks later, some landowner would nervously stammer about sacred private property and how the county shouldn't be able to take a parcel of his planned subdivision to build a road to a shopping center owned by cronies of the county commission.

I miss those, too. Now, the debates are thought of as entertainment to be marketed rather than serious discussions to be held: thus is born the Ann Coulter's of the world.

Have you noticed how all the people who complain about giving equal time also complain about the liberal media?

I sense they've asked Hank to do the math again.