O'Reilly, Ingraham Stoke Fairness Doctrine Paranoia

Yesterday, we talked about how conservatives were all a-leap with terror over the wholly hallucinatory notion that President-elect Barack Obama and the Democratic Congress were going to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine. The facts are these: Obama's against its reimplementation, Democratic lawmakers are mystified over the concern, and given the chance as recently as last year to put the Doctrine back in place, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives shot the idea down, with Democratic members voting against it in large numbers.

And yet, last night -- right on cue -- two of Fox News' media celebrities continued to waste their own airwaves talking about this entirely spectral inanity. Here's Laura Ingraham and Bill O'Reilly discussing it. O'Reilly doesn't understand that cable news shows aren't part of the Fairness Doctrine. Laura Ingraham believes that a quip Chuck Schumer made on Fox News (see second paragraph) to mess with their heads constitutes a policy position. O'Reilly doesn't believe the Doctrine will be reinstated (which is correct) because it would be Obama's "don't ask, don't tell" (which is straight up daffydoodles).

Matt Yglesias, using his excellent summative wit, says "It's very strange. Political movements mischaracterize the other side's general goals all the time. But I've never heard of anything like the current conservative mania for blocking a particular legislative provision that nobody is trying to enact." Too right! I'd say that when it comes to phantom menaces, it's far more likely that we need to worry about that crazy Year 2012 Mayan Calendar Apocalypse thingy than we do about the Fairness Doctrine:

I mean, that's just bananas! And the only thing in place to prevent that is a damned Buddhist monk with a bell? That's crazy.

Anyway, here's a video of doctors removing a "brain worm" from some woman's head. I know! WE HAVE GOT BRAIN WORMS NOW, APPARENTLY. Anyway, maybe these brain worms are what's causing so many conservatives to freak out about the Fairness Doctrine, and also defend Sarah Palin.

Comments

[sposton]

I thought FOX supports the fairness doctrine. After all, they are fair as in "Fair and Balanced"! ;-)

[CatoTheCensor]

We have to worry about BRAIN WORMS now?! That is so Wrath of Khan!

[DFL]

MORE RIGHT WING TALKSHOW HOSTS TRYING TO SCARE EVERYONE, THE DEMS WANT YOUR GUNS, THE DEMS WANT TO DO AWAY WITH 401-K'S, THE DEMS WANT TO DO AWAY WITH TALK RADIO, YEAH RIGHT.

[loveobamas]

I AGREE,I HATE FOX NEWS WITH A PASSION :(

[RushBinLimbaugh]

I'm not sure that I understand...
If the MSM is so liberal, why would conservatives be afraid of fairness?

[gotborked]

because fairness doctrine only applies to [talk] radio, not TV.

[Marcospinelli]

Corporate media also had to give citiizens access to the air waves. Not a lot of time, but some. That could be letting some person with a gripe to make or a cause to advertise come in to the local station and tape a 30 second public service announcement which would be broadcast in the middle of the night. At the end of the broadcast, the station's announcer would say, "If you or your organization have an alternative point of view, please contact our station and we will put you on the air."

By 1987, the corporate media was complaining about what a strain it was to have to find alternative points of view to balance some of those who had used their 30 seconds of fame. They didn't have to do that, but that's the argument that moved Reagan to eliminate the Fairness Doctrine.

[Marcospinelli]

No, that's not true. For every hour of Joe Pyne, there had to be an hour of David Susskind.

Rightwingers always obscure the facts and history of the situation they want to change. Here's why corporations schemed to get rid of the Fairness Doctrine.

When corporations were given the licenses to broadcast on the people's air waves in 1937, they were required to broadcast in the people's interest and for the public good by setting aside a certain amount of time for public service broadcasting. That could be emergency broadcasting (breaking into programming for some calamity, such as a train derailment, or tornados, etc.). It also meant regularly scheduled local, state and federal government affairs type programs.

The corporations balked, lost revenue, but that was the only way they would get the licenses so they put the non-emergency public service broadcasting on when there were the fewest viewers -- Sunday mornings (when people were in church) and in the middle of the night, before signing off the air.

[Whinger]

Just like two worms wriggling on a hot tin roof, tormented by their own imagination!

[bellabeach]

Funny!

[Giada]

Obviously neither are getting enough attention ...and both are symbolic of the character Stuart in need of attention, "Look what I can do."

Sit down, be quiet, it's not your turn.

[MajorKong]

Nobody's talking about reinstating the Fairness Doctrine. However, since it makes O'Reilly and Ingraham squirm so much, maybe we should go with it.

[Marcospinelli]

Yes, people are talking about reinstating it, and it's a good thing.

[gotborked]

Yes they are. Read these comments and listen to Dem congressmens' comments. They're foaming at the mouth to push this through after January comes.

[MajorKong]

Is that before or after they institute Sharia law and a Marxist-Leninist centralized economy?

[gfs5541]

There IS no democratic desire to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine. We LIKE for conservatives to keep talking their nonsense so that they will destroy their party JUST by opening their mouths!

[gfs5541]

Correction: Some Democratic politicians do support bringing it back but Obama does not:

In June 2008, Barack Obama's press secretary wrote that Senator Obama (Democrat of Illinois) "does not support reimposing the Fairness Doctrine on broadcasters," but that he "considers this debate to be a distraction from the conversation we should be having about opening up the airwaves and modern communications to as many diverse viewpoints as possible," adding, "That is why Sen. Obama supports media-ownership caps, network neutrality, public broadcasting, as well as increasing minority ownership of broadcasting and print outlets." [30]

[Marcospinelli]

"Some Democratic politicians do support bringing it back but Obama does not:"

Obama is wrong. And we did not elect a king, but a public servant.

[RevSpaminator]

I think it is a desperate attempt to win something, anything, in a loosing year. Even if they have to pick a fight with an imaginary combatant and claim victory when no one shows up to do battle.

[MsYellowDog]

That's what O'Reilly specializes in: setting up straw men(example--his "War On Christmas" that HE invented!) and then trying for hero-status by batting down and destroying the straw man! All the Neanderthals do that!

[bpress]

We do not need the return of the fairness doctrine, but don't call a show a 'news program' when it appears to have a bias and expresses commentary or opinions. Limiting ownership of multiple radio and television stations in a market is what is needed. This would open the over air and cable communications medium to a variety of opinions. Neocons scream bias even if one station has one show which has a differing opinion, and scream at almost everything else. The real conservatives and liberals don't fear the free expression of differing opinions.

[GlenRast]

Bottom line...The only people who watch and believe FOX and the AM winger stations already believe the garbage and are just looking for someone to reinforce their beliefs. They will never think for themselves so why let them bother you. I couldn't even tell you what channel FOX News is on my cable box. I'd no more watch it than I'd keep trying a food I didn't like in the hope that some day it might taste better. What I always found funny is the night and day difference between FOX News and the FOX channel. Especially when the moralists whine about shows like Family Guy. News Corp will always put profit over politics despite the right wing ranting of Murdoc. If it starts to loss money FOX News will either be gone or undergo a major make over. All this ranting is really about job insecurity and ego damage.

[Marcospinelli]

No, no, no, and no. You don't get it, and what remains to be seen for me is if you want to get it more than you don't want to be wrong. Ironically, it's the same dilemma for the Fox viewer.

The typical Fox viewer believes the garbage because alternatives are not presented to him to challenge the legitimacy of what Fox is telling him. Garbage in, Garbage out. It's hard enough for liberals to find the facts to challenge assertions made by the rightwing, much less unmotivated (overworked, overstressed trying to make it through life, family and work, pay the bills, etc.) citizens who like getting their version of a PDF (Presidential Daily Briefing) from one place -- Fox.

Look how long it took to address the Bill Ayers, "He pals around with terrorists" charge, still around by the end of the campaign by Sarah Palin after first being introduced by Hillary Clinton seven months earlier. It didn't get put to rest finally until Bill Ayers himself hit GMA and said, "Let's talk about Vietnam and those days, and the terrible things our government has done in our names." That's a discussion that has yet to happen, and it won't now. Not in the mainstream media, not on Fox. Fox will reinforce McCarthy-like thinking between now and 2012.

[Marcospinelli]

Fox News can afford to lose money because Fox channel makes money with entertainment programs that keep viewers' attention (for the ads) with stupid, dull programming. They perpetuate the dumbing of Americans. You don't watch it, I don't watch it, but more than 50% of voters do. As do many more who don't vote.

[gbw1954]

The tinfoil hats and antennas must be getting too tight over there. The voices and buzz they hear is a rehash of one another flapping their jaws, sucking in good air and exhaling each others story. Remember make it up, shout it loud, shout it often and ignore dialog and it will become the facts according to Billo.

[luvobama]

I'd like to see a program every night that disproved every talking head on the right side of the dial, and every segment that was false or inciteful on Faux news. I would never miss it and I would sign my right wingers up for the channel.

[littlewing157]

luvobama; Keith Olbermann at msnbc comes as close to being that type of news show than any other. You'd probably love Rachel Maddow too. They not only cover the current big stories, but also the ones that get under-reported by other news stations.
And they LOVE pointing out the lies and bs at Fox Noise.

Peace!

[Geranium]

Now THEY (MSNBC) are the ones that should be worried about the fairness doctrine. They reek of partisanship. Works both ways, doesn't it? and what is unfair about FOX? They welcome the opposing viewpoint. The MSM, most of the rest of cable news channels, and Air America talk radio is liberal and biased. Don't they "even things out" for those talk show hosts - "those mean, nasty, Conservative" ones, that don't share the views of the the "fair and open - minded"?

[LMPE]

Bill O'Liary and Laura Inkbrain appear to Frankenstein's monsters with the brains of cavemen.

[nellie]

What progressive media advocates are seeking is equal access to strong signal stations. That's very different from the fairness doctrine. I doubt Air America wants to be forced into airing programs hosted by any of the right wing nutbags currently in the radio business.

[Marcospinelli]

Strong signal stations is just part of the problem, nellie. To rectify that part will take years if not decades. We don't have that kind of time.

The conflict between the left and the right is a perpetual struggle, and is carried out in something of a shell game. Conservatives have no sense of community beyond their own small world and are greedy. They don't want to pay taxes yet they ignore that in order to have community services such as roads and fire departments, the money has to be raised somehow. They have been gaming this by shifting the tax burden to the states from the federal government. It's a constant swinging of the pendulum, from the left to the right (and then back again), that when after the burden moves to the states it then moves back to the feds.

As Americans live the history and realize the problem (the scam that is being perpetrated by conservatives) and that it costs what it costs, we're going to be paying for it anyway, whether it's at the federal or state level, it's too late to benefit their own lives. They die off and a new uneducated generation gets their history lessons from the propaganda on rightwing radio and television.

[Marcospinelli]

The Fairness Doctrine required corporations to be out of politics, in that if they had a program on the air (the people's air waves) with an ideological bent, equal time had to be offered to give alternative points of view either then at the time or with another program of equal length. How novel an idea is that? A Rush Limbaugh could spew his brains out, but an equivalent voice on the other side also had to have the same opportunity to make his or her case. Or a neutral program host ("let journalists be journalists, asking questions from no particular perspective") would talk with guests from all sides of an issue to give the viewer or listener a more complete understanding of an issue in one sitting or viewing.

Why should the audience have to search out the other side of the story? Ninety percent of Fox viewers never change their channel from Fox. That's fine, except that they vote.