Too much choice or not enough modern liberal dominance?


Democrats in Congress want to pick and choose which rules the FCC applies to anyone who doesn't share the modern liberal viewpoint
Here's one that got lost in my stack for a couple of days (silly me, I didn't save by the title).

Back in 2003, a somewhat free-market-minded Federal Communications Commission, chaired by Republican Michael Powell, proposed to revise the arcane policies governing media ownership, which, among other things, limit how many newspapers, television stations, or radio stations a single entity can own in each community. “Americans today have more media choices, more sources of news and information, and more varied entertainment programming available to them than ever before,” the FCC observed. Allowing slightly more cross-ownership, it reasoned, would simply clear out the regulatory deadwood that artificially limited the ability of older media operators (broadcasters and newspapers) to compete with all the new media alternatives. Such a measure would do nothing to harm media multiplicity.

Despite the moderate nature of the FCC’s proposal, all hell broke loose on the left, and things haven’t really died down since. In congressional debates, Democratic lawmakers warned apocalyptically of the horrors that the FCC’s proposed reform would unleash. Representative Edward Markey of Massachusetts—mentioning Citizen Kane but clearly thinking of Rupert Murdoch, whose FOX News and other media outlets have won a big audience for conservative views—implied that a few all-powerful media tycoons could soon run the world. California congresswoman Lynn Woolsey accused the FCC of trying to impose a centralized “Saddam-style information system in the United States.” Not to be outdone, New York’s Maurice Hinchey saw the new rules as a GOP-led “mind control” project. “It’s a well-thought-out and planned effort to control the political process,” he said. “It will wipe out our democracy.” Then–Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean said that he’d break up Murdoch’s media empire “on ideological grounds.”

The circus-like “town hall meetings” that followed proved even more overheated. Pushed by Democratic FCC commissioners and organized by MoveOn.org, Free Press, and other leftist advocacy groups, these sessions gave anyone with a gripe against a media company a chance to vent. Some grumbled that TV and radio featured too much religious programming; others argued that there wasn’t enough. Everyone said that local radio broadcast nothing but garbage—but everyone defined garbage differently. And many aired long lists of complaints about the multiple radio stations, television channels, and newspapers in their areas, only to conclude that their local media markets were insufficiently competitive!

The critics did agree on one thing: government had to take steps to reverse our current media predicament—whatever it was. A variety of advocacy groups then took the FCC to court and got the Third Circuit Court of Appeals to put the whole media ownership revision on hold.

My major was actually film and television production, it's a long story how that got diverted into a career as a Corporate Clone. Anyway, back in the mid 1980s the Fairness Doctrine hadn't been overturned for all that long, and case studies on it's implications were still required for my major. Long story short, even then it was pretty evident that getting rid of the Fairness Doctrine had actually opened up the market to divergent viewpoints. Rush Limbaugh makes the same point in his first book, only with much more ego and credit claiming. With some justification, he calls these periodic efforts "the Hush Rush law."

It's not just the addition of cable and satellite networks that have led to the explosion of media choice, it's the removal of the Fairness Doctrine.

Government intervention leads to less choice and less diversity of thought.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Wed - April 18, 2007 at 05:03 AM  Tag


 ◊  ◊   ◊  ◊ 

Random selections from NeoWayland's library


Pagan Vigil "Because LIBERTY demands more than just black or white"
© 2005 - 2009 All Rights Reserved