The Fairness Doctrine and Why It Is Blissfully Deceased
I often hear the argument from the Left that for all the talk of being "balanced", talk radio is overwhelmingly dominated by conservatives. They further argue, if conservatives really believed in "balance", they would agree to an equal amount of liberal talk radio shows to counter the conservatives, thus resurrecting the old argument from the Fairness Doctrine.
Never mind that in the history of the Fairness Doctrine, it was primarily used as a political weapon to bully popular but politically damaging points of view from the air waves. The Fairness Doctrine, like most things left of center, sounds noble. Don't let one opinion dominate, give everyone equal time. When you're talking about a government-funded company, one that doesn't have to compete in the free market, say like Public Radio, that makes sense. I've never seen it practiced, but it makes sense. The rest of radio and TV operates in the free market entirely, however. It makes no sense in any fashion for them to have to air programs that don't generate ad revenue to keep the station going.
If liberal radio was popular, which it isn't, it would succeed on its own, but it doesn't. It must exist in a refuge or with very wealthy individual contributors or occasionally even through seedy means like defrauding charities. The last was a cheap shot, I'll admit, but an accurate one.
The idea of offering a "fair shot" is what the free market is all about. Go out there, air your product, in this case political talk radio, and see what the public wants to hear or believe. From the look of the last few years' Arbitron ratings, that's overwhelmingly conservative talk radio. Very few care to listen to Air America or any one of the couple dozen "Liberal's answer to Rush Limbaugh" hosts that aired and then faded just as quickly. Where are you Mario Cuomo?
Yet, I still to this day hear on the radio and read on the web leftists arguing for "equal time". I'm often inclined to ask if we should give equal time to other divergent points of view, like Klan members, the Nation of Islam, MEChA, and any other political organization that feels it should get a chance to air its views. I didn't just pick those organizations out of a hat. It's the free market. The left started the whole "marketplace of ideas" schtick to begin with. It doesn't just mean ideas with which you happen to agree.
Fairness Doctrine, R.I.P.
Oh...and Happy New Year...
I often hear the argument from the Left that for all the talk of being "balanced", talk radio is overwhelmingly dominated by conservatives. They further argue, if conservatives really believed in "balance", they would agree to an equal amount of liberal talk radio shows to counter the conservatives, thus resurrecting the old argument from the Fairness Doctrine.
Never mind that in the history of the Fairness Doctrine, it was primarily used as a political weapon to bully popular but politically damaging points of view from the air waves. The Fairness Doctrine, like most things left of center, sounds noble. Don't let one opinion dominate, give everyone equal time. When you're talking about a government-funded company, one that doesn't have to compete in the free market, say like Public Radio, that makes sense. I've never seen it practiced, but it makes sense. The rest of radio and TV operates in the free market entirely, however. It makes no sense in any fashion for them to have to air programs that don't generate ad revenue to keep the station going.
If liberal radio was popular, which it isn't, it would succeed on its own, but it doesn't. It must exist in a refuge or with very wealthy individual contributors or occasionally even through seedy means like defrauding charities. The last was a cheap shot, I'll admit, but an accurate one.
The idea of offering a "fair shot" is what the free market is all about. Go out there, air your product, in this case political talk radio, and see what the public wants to hear or believe. From the look of the last few years' Arbitron ratings, that's overwhelmingly conservative talk radio. Very few care to listen to Air America or any one of the couple dozen "Liberal's answer to Rush Limbaugh" hosts that aired and then faded just as quickly. Where are you Mario Cuomo?
Yet, I still to this day hear on the radio and read on the web leftists arguing for "equal time". I'm often inclined to ask if we should give equal time to other divergent points of view, like Klan members, the Nation of Islam, MEChA, and any other political organization that feels it should get a chance to air its views. I didn't just pick those organizations out of a hat. It's the free market. The left started the whole "marketplace of ideas" schtick to begin with. It doesn't just mean ideas with which you happen to agree.
Fairness Doctrine, R.I.P.
Oh...and Happy New Year...
posted by Rob Beck | 6:23 PM
1 Comments:
The "fairness doctrine" is rather ironically named. It relies upon government to force the owner of the signal to air views he would rather not. What's fair about that?
I like to run this test on liberals who blog: If you believe in the fairness doctrine, will you willingly devote half of your blog space to the views of conservatives?
It seems the usual response is that they can get their own blog. Rather the same with radio stations.
Post a Comment
<< Home