Rush Limbaugh gets $400M contract

Your shallow thinking should earn you a spot in the U.S. Senate.

Fairness Doctrine: For Opinion A to air, there must be an Opinion Z. That's not freedom of speech. That's dictation.

 

FARK headline

It's funny because it's true.

 

Still my favorite headline of all time:

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/34614

 

Only in America.

God bless the USA!!!1

 

Gee, I didn't think my thinking was so 'shallow' as you put it. I usually don't insult other posters on here, even if I disagree with them. I usually just try to provide point-counterpoint to issues.

Anyhoo, I find it pretty ironic that you are claiming the Fairness Doctrine would be 'dictation'. This, coming from a poster who supports a political party that would 'dictate' what God to pray to in schools, 'dicate' who grown adults can marry, and 'dictate' medical decisions that a family should be making (i.e. Terri Schiavo).

But I digress. Like I said, the airwaves belong to the public. That's all of us. The FCC provides licenses to regulate it. Otherwise, you would get any ham radio operator trying to broadcast while your favorite baseball team's game is on. And the government already 'dictates' certain TV programming to the free networks through the FCC, especially at night, when young kids can be watching. That's why the FCC handed out a multimillion dollar fine for the Janet Jackson incident.

What the Fairness Doctrine does, as you actually put it pretty well with your alphabet example, is to allow other opinions to reach the American public. Like the Dixie Chicks example. They still had plenty of fans after their comments about Bush. But radio stations decided unilaterally to stop playing their music, instead of just telling their critics to change the channel.

 

the government hasn't made it easier for Clear Channel to take over the airwaves by relaxing ownership rules?

And I challenge you to a duel, you heathen bastard.

 

Correction every American -- and certainly every journalist and any other person who believes in the first amendment -- SHOULD hate fairness doctrine laws.

It is simple -- you want to counter Rush and Hannity, find a sponsor and find an audience and find a station that believes it can make money off your show.

Or turn the dial.......

 

Banjos at 20 paces?

 

That is a misnomer. Before the Fairness Doctrine, talk radio was confined to local shows with local issues. National shows were a non-starter because every time someone had a strong opinion, there was always a complaint and station owners saw little point in having to make time for an "opposing" viewpoint.

Talk radio, love or hate it, saved AM radio. It'd probably be dead without it.

As for liberal talk radio, no one wants to hear a liberal version of Rush when they can tune into to MSNBC and watch Olbermann, or Comedy Central and watch the Daily Show or CNN and get all of the "progressive" slant they want. Pretty much with the exception of what you guys term "Faux" News, there is nowhere for those on the right to go, except Rush, Sean, Boortz, etc. Ratings for liberal shows absolutely suck because no one and I mean no one, wants to hear that on the radio. The absolutely abysmal ratings of every one of the Left's answer to Rush and Air America bear this out.

What isn't fair is that the so-called "Fairness Doctrine" will end all of those shows. All will disappear in less than a year and that's what the Nancy Pelosis and the Obamas and many in the GOP want.

I don't buy that "public airwaves" argument for a minute. I'm for an unchecked, unmolested First Amendment applied everywhere equally: print and electronic.

 

So, you're saying you support monopolies? That's what radio stations have become, especially Clear Channel.

I don't see why journalists should hate the fairness doctrine laws, which would make speech available to more members of the public than less.

 

OK, but I have a bunch of Air America stuff taped that I have to listen to first.

 

So, you would support any ham radio operator opening his own station regardless if it interfered with the reception from any other station? The ham radio guy could claim his First Amendment rights were violated if his station was shut down, just as the owner of the radio station that was having his programming interefered with.