Conservative fears of an impending Democratic attack on talk radio -- dubbed the "Hush Rush" effort in an homage to top-rated radio talker Rush Limbaugh -- continue to escalate, despite ample evidence that such an assault is unlikely to occur when (as is likely) Democrats sweep back into power in the forthcoming elections in November.
As noted recently on the "Focus on the Family action" website citizenlink.com, conservative fears of a supposed return to the Federal Communications Commission's long-defunct Fairness Doctrine remain unabated. In a post entitled "Take Action: Ask Congress to Protect Talk Radio," Managing Editor Jennifer Mesko recently wrote, "Democrats have threatened to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine which would force conservative stations to broadcast liberal viewpoints."
In response, says Mesko, "Radio broadcasters and some members of Congress are calling on Democrats to celebrate July Fourth -- dubbed "Radio Independence Day" -- by pledging to protect the airwaves from censorship."
As previously reported, "Leading hard-right conservatives, led by their talk radio 'shock jock' shock troops, have been worrying aloud about the supposed return of the long-defunct Fairness Doctrine ever since their stunning success last year in defeating bi-partisan immigration reform."
Although most informed observers believe the right's existential angst is unfounded, it is nonetheless real -- and has spurred former broadcaster and current congressman Mike Pence, R-Ind., to introduce the Broadcaster Freedom Act (H.R. 2905), which would prohibit the FCC from reinstating the Fairness Doctrine. "Bringing back the Fairness Doctrine would amount to government control of political views on the commercial and religious airwaves of America, and it must be opposed," Pence told Family News in Focus, while calling on Congress to support the Broadcaster Freedom Act before July Fourth. Shock jock Laura Ingraham joined Pence, saying, "This is nothing more than an attempt to have government regulate one of the most effective forms of political discussion today."
Of course, only a year ago more than three hundred members of Congress -- including 113 Democrats -- supported a moratorium on the Fairness Doctrine!
Meanwhile, other conservatives, such as Jim Boulet Jr., executive director of English First and organizer of the website KeepRushontheAir.com are claiming that the cunning (if Republican-controlled) FCC -- employing a little known tactic Boulet terms "legislation by stealth" -- may instead "reinstate the Fairness Doctrine via something called 'localism.'"
In a National Review Online post headlined "FCC Tries to Hush Rush," Boulet assails the "tyranny of 'cultural diversity' while citing "a little-noticed item in the Federal Register" he claims will soon hand the FCC "the power to drive Rush Limbaugh off the air."
Liberals are obsessed with "balancing" Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Hugh Hewitt, Mark Levin, and the rest of conservative talk radio, says Boulet, "even though plenty of other outlets -- the Washington Post, the New York Times, USA Today, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, PBS, and National Public Radio -- constantly flog the liberal agenda." And since the "Hush Rush crowd's dream" to revive the so-called "Fairness Doctrine ... using the democratic process," has failed, Boulet says, "regulations proposed on January 28 by the Federal Communications Commission would effectively reinstate the Fairness Doctrine via something called 'localism.'"
This "legislation by stealth" means that "most of the Fairness Doctrine's opponents might not know about it until it's too late," says Boulet. "Which isn't to say it was impossible to see this coming. The Left has long sought new ways of bringing back the Fairness Doctrine, and their latest gambit features a sizable dose of political correctness."
Right-wingers like Boulet charge that a 2007 Center for American Progress/Free Press report called The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio "cleverly recasts the Fairness Doctrine as 'localism' by stating that 'any effort to encourage more responsive and balanced radio programming will first require steps to increase localism.'"
Boulet apparently believes the FCC "has swallowed the Center's diversity rationale whole" and that "cultural diversity" requirements will soon be imposed that will have the effect of knocking Rush Limbaugh and his ilk off the air. "This cultural diversity is to be enforced by professional ethnic activists and other perpetual malcontents," claims Boulet.
As a result, he opines:
"Should the FCC prevail, radio stations will return to the sort of programming that predominated during the days of the Fairness Doctrine, only filtered by 2008-style political correctness. Instead of full debate on controversial issues such as amnesty for illegal aliens, AM radio will become a herd of independent minds, a vast 'Air America' from sea to shining sea in which never a conservative word is heard."
Although this putative threat to the First Amendment simply isn't real, the notion that the days of right-wing dominance of the airwaves may well be numbered is rapidly becoming a reality -- not because of any government-imposed regulation, but simply because the political tide appears to be turning at last, and our long national nightmare may in fact be drawing to a close.
Happy "Radio Independence Day," everyone!
Follow Rory O'Connor on Twitter: www.twitter.com/rocglobal
It is about using public airwaves to unfairly attack another American.
Conservative broadcasters to broadcast lies as 'speculation' or stop lying altogether. Without lying, conservatism would lose a large part of the American middle class, which is often too dumb to question the truth or falsity of the statements.
I feel sorry for those who do - imagine inhabiting a world so small, so dark that every step taken is as though one were forced to wear shoes too small, and to rely on a putrid odor for guidance instead of even the faintest light. I pray for them, too, when I pray for my country.
There is no market for Liberal Talk Radio. For whatever reason, no one wants to listen to it. Air America is a prime example. It's the flagship lefty network yet it must constantly be bailed out by one Liberal millionaire after another. They can't get enough advertisers to stay out of bankruptcy.
It all stations were forced to add a Lefty program to balance out the Right Wing programs then the stations would be losing money on the Liberal programming. Soooo......what do you do? You either raise the prices for advertising on the rest of the shows or take a loss on the Liberal programming.
The more likely outcome would be a loss of Right and Left Wing programming and some other shows added instead. As Right Wing Talk Radio shut down the Amnesty schemes last year I imagine many in Congress would like this.
Ignorant voters make happy politicians.
Look, the televangelists always use some purported enemy as a fundraising tool and the rightwing talkers, who decry the whole victimhood thing while using it for themselves, are doing it to bring solidarity to their ilk among the public. Pretty transparent really.
While I'm a liberal, I'm also opposed to the fairness doctrine. The reason is twofold: one, I am very uncomfortable with government dictating content in the media. It is funny that Dobson complains about censorship even as he is probably the biggest pro-censorship force in the U.S.
Secondly, it is up to the public to sort out what is nonsense and what is the truth, no matter what is on the radio ro television. Limbaugh, et al aren't journalists and everybody knows it. Their shows also play to the choir, if studies are correct. So let the wingers listen to Rush's crap. Who cares?
Look, this article promised to show the decline of rightwing radio. I was hoping to see some evidence of falling ratings and a declining number of radio stations feeaturing the winger format, etc, but that wasn't delivered here. So there is no proof offered that winger radio is in decline (though, iirc, Limbaugh's show, which is given to stations free---probably in exchange for part of the local commercial time allotment---has shed about half of its stations).
Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Brit Hume, Pat Buchanan, William F Buckley Jr., Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Cal Thomas, Charles Krauthammer, Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck, Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Michael Medved, Matt Drudge, Mike Gallagher, Laura Schlesinger, Fred Barnes, Fred Hiatt, Thomas Sowell, Neil Cavuto, Richard Mellon Scaife, Laura Ingram, Michael Savage, James Dobson, Ben Stein, Jonah Goldberg, Jack Welch and Rupert Murdoch discuss the lack of conservative voices in the media.
/snark
Every radio station in the country has to file regularly for renewal, and part of the process is showing that they are serving the public interests of their area.
A few years ago here, two women who had a local talk show so conservative that the local Republicans were attacked as much as Democrats, always with much more innuendo that facts, were pulled off the air when a local petition to question the station's license renewal due to lack of local service. The women had often crossed the line into provable slander on-air. The station owners quickly decided it wasn't worth a fight, and they were gone within a month.
If the stations are held accountable for the slander their radio personalities say, they face losing their licenses. That line is crossed regularly by Rush and the rest- maybe it's time for him to pay back that loan from God with some interest, a station at a time. It's not a question of fairness- just one of responsibility.
Notice how he refrains from calling them the PUBLIC airwaves.
Make no mistake about it, Savage, Hannity and Limbaugh have, for the last 20 years, conducted a---daily---verbal propaganda war against liberals and liberalism every word the equal of Hitler's harangues against Jews and Communists in the 1930's. They are dead-set on "defeating" liberals and they make that clear every day. As a country, we need to confront the seriousness of this threat to democracy.
This is neofascism developing in the making.