Where is the Center

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

A question in a slightly different direction:

There is a strong consensus in this forum that Talk Radio does not appeal to people in the middle of the political spectrum and that they are not going to spend their time listening to things political on the radio.

I know TheBigA has some experience with Public Radio and maybe there are others in this group who have a good understanding of the audience attracted to Public Radio and to NPR. When it comes to fund raising and membership, does Public Radio have any idea of what the "political passions" of their donors might be. Since there are a lot of strong feelings here that people in the middle are wimpy or something, or maybe do not even exist.... do they write checks to stations in the Public Radio arena?

Will they get more excited about an NPR station that has gone basically all talk, or do they prefer an NPR station that still fills part of the broadcast day with musical content reasonably heavy on the Classics?

 

[Small Market Guy]

So you are telling us that you have visits from the FCC in your station's newsroom checking out how you do it. Once? Multiple time?

You don't remember the newsroom surveys that were proposed a few months back?

Come on. If you want an "adult" conversation, you have to start by being honest.

 

[Small Market Guy]

No, the FCC assumed that role. They serve as content police because they want to, not because a law says that they have to. The law created the FCC and gave them the power to write regulations that had the power of law, though they were not, in fact, laws. That's the case with most regulations promulgated by Executive Branch bureaucracies. That's also the sort of "big government" that both libertarians and conservatives have a problem with.

This is true, but the FCC assuming a role to restrict obscene content isn't too terrible. When they start restricting certain political views, which forcing "fairness" would do, they step over the line.

 

[Avid Listener]

This is true, but the FCC assuming a role to restrict obscene content isn't too terrible. When they start restricting certain political views, which forcing "fairness" would do, they step over the line.

And since they decide what is and isn't "obscene", there's nothing that really stands in the way of interpreting certain opinions or points of view as "hate speech", and therefore obscene. Just try expressing certain traditional, conservative opinions on things like the traditional definition of marriage and see how many people accuse you of "hate speech". It's only a matter of time before some politician who wants to pander to a constituency that's likely to vote for him by slapping down a constituency that wouldn't vote for him anyway reminds someone in the FCC that it's time to decide how much money should be in the FCC's budget. And that he's inclined to look favorably at a healthy appropriation for the FCC, but he's too busy responding to constituents who are upset about "homophobic hate speech". If only that problem would go away, he'd be better able to concentrate on the FCC's budget, including the funding for a fact-finding mission by certain FCC bureaucrats to investigate radio reception on the beaches of Hawaii, "if you catch my drift".

 

[Small Market Guy]

And since they decide what is and isn't "obscene", there's nothing that really stands in the way of interpreting certain opinions or points of view as "hate speech", and therefore obscene. Just try expressing certain traditional, conservative opinions on things like the traditional definition of marriage and see how many people accuse you of "hate speech". It's only a matter of time before some politician who wants to pander to a constituency that's likely to vote for him by slapping down a constituency that wouldn't vote for him anyway reminds someone in the FCC that it's time to decide how much money should be in the FCC's budget. And that he's inclined to look favorably at a healthy appropriation for the FCC, but he's too busy responding to constituents who are upset about "homophobic hate speech". If only that problem would go away, he'd be better able to concentrate on the FCC's budget, including the funding for a fact-finding mission by certain FCC bureaucrats to investigate radio reception on the beaches of Hawaii, "if you catch my drift".

All very legit concerns, considering your theoretical situation is exactly how the advocates of censoring political speech have tried to get it done. There's a simple solution, though. Define "obscene" as the seven dirty words and be done with it.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

You don't remember the newsroom surveys that were proposed a few months back?

Come on. If you want an "adult" conversation, you have to start by being honest.

Honesty. That would indeed make for good conversation.

What I was responding to was your statement which seemed to indicate Past-tense and present-tense newsroom intervention.

Requiring tons of paperwork in order to discourage controversial discussion is de facto censorship. But even beyond that, we've seen the FCC nosing around newsrooms lately.

But now you want to question my integrity by dropping a bomb about what the FCC might do in the future.


The time has come to be true to the tagline at the bottom of my contributions to the conversations here. The dance floor here has become clogged with UGLY POSTS. Life is just way too damn short to endure daily insults and personal attacks.

Adios.

 

[Avid Listener]

The dance floor here has become clogged with UGLY POSTS. Life is just way too damn short to endure daily insults and personal attacks.

Ugly, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

And, there is such a thing as taking disagreements way too personally.

 

[Small Market Guy]

But now you want to question my integrity by dropping a bomb about what the FCC might do in the future.

They've done it in the past. You've been told about this after denying that it happened. Maybe it happened after you got out of radio. Fine. But stop acting like you don't know these things happened. You're trying to put words in my mouth when it's blatantly obvious what FCC malfeasance these posts were about.

You can play the victim all you want. I don't care. You're using cheap debate tactics to try to get away with stuff like blaming Republicans and libertarians for the Ku Klux Klan. Knock it off if you want to be taken seriously. If you think being called out is "ugly posts", too bad.

And don't bother sending me any condescending private messages either. I'll just post them publicly to show everyone what a fraud you really are.

You speak to everyone here like they're children. Your children. I'd be willing to wager most of us are well into middle age. We're old enough to know how the world works without some wannabe Will Rogers trying to tell us how things "really are".

 

[Small Market Guy]

Ugly, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

And, there is such a thing as taking disagreements way too personally.

Blaming libertarians for the Klan isn't ugly, apparently.

 

[TheBigA]

Then there are some big holes in your knowledge.

You should read my whole post first before you comment on individual sentences, and put my post in context with what I'm talking about. Then it makes more sense.

 

[TheBigA]

If only that problem would go away, he'd be better able to concentrate on the FCC's budget, including the funding for a fact-finding mission by certain FCC bureaucrats to investigate radio reception on the beaches of Hawaii, "if you catch my drift".

Maybe you don't know that the FCC appropriation this year was basically zero. They were given money, but with the proviso that they had to offset it with collections from fines, fees, and spectrum sales. So the Congress doesn't have an awful lot of leverage with the budget.

Also, the licensees are pretty willing to spend whatever it takes to challenge the FCC on issues like language. Their latest challenge was basically a loss for the FCC, with the courts calling the FCC rules "capricious" and demanding more specificity. The FCC really doesn't have much power in the language department these days.

Right now, Congress is a lot more concerned with what the FCC does with the internet and net neutrality. Radio is pretty low priority.

 

[Small Market Guy]

Right now, Congress is a lot more concerned with what the FCC does with the internet and net neutrality. Radio is pretty low priority.

They screwed the pooch on that one, too. You're right about radio being a low priority, but they did just get caught in a plan to police newsrooms. Low priority doesn't mean they're absolutely ignoring radio. We must remain vigilant.

Meanwhile, the spectrum is being ruined by interference from every device we can think of, and they do nothing.

 

[TheBigA]

I know TheBigA has some experience with Public Radio and maybe there are others in this group who have a good understanding of the audience attracted to Public Radio and to NPR. When it comes to fund raising and membership, does Public Radio have any idea of what the "political passions" of their donors might be.

They do, but it doesn't matter. Like everyone they do research. But unlike everyone, there's a huge firewall between fundraising and programming. And NPR (the network)doesn't have members. They are prohibited from raising money from their listeners. So if they have a lot of liberal listeners, it doesn't matter. The stations, on the other hand, have members. But they don't carry NPR programming exclusively. A lot of what they do to attract members comes from what they do as local stations. So it's a bit more complicated. Targeting a specific ideology can backfire, especially if you're located in a rich conservative area like Monterey California. So you keep the talk about neutral topics like the arts. Plus it's pretty obvious that the audience for politics is limiting. There lots of other demographics that are more useful, like education, income, and status. That means if they can appeal to the rich, well educated, president of a company who might donate money, it's more useful than someone who happens to agree with a particular political point of view. So politics is an uncomfortable discussion, especially since it tends to be so divisive.

 

[TheBigA]

You're right about radio being a low priority, but they did just get caught in a plan to police newsrooms. Low priority doesn't mean they're absolutely ignoring radio. We must remain vigilant.

What newsrooms were they going to police? Most stations don't have newsrooms. Including a lot of talk stations. The FCC took care of that a long time ago.

 

[Avid Listener]

You should read my whole post first before you comment on individual sentences, and put my post in context with what I'm talking about. Then it makes more sense.

The "Ignore" feature is a wonderful thing.

 

[JeffM]

The time has come to be true to the tagline at the bottom of my contributions to the conversations here. The dance floor here has become clogged with UGLY POSTS. Life is just way too damn short to endure daily insults and personal attacks.

Adios.

With GRC out of the picture, it oughta be fun watching you conservazoids eat each other alive.

 

[flybynight]

With GRC out of the picture, it oughta be fun watching you conservazoids eat each other alive.

Stubborn, doctrinaire conservatives poisoning the discourse? Where have I seen that happen before? Hmmmm....

 

[Small Market Guy]

What newsrooms were they going to police? Most stations don't have newsrooms. Including a lot of talk stations. The FCC took care of that a long time ago.

Who knows? They got stopped in their tracks before it got started. Policing one newsroom is one too many.

 

[Small Market Guy]

Stubborn, doctrinaire conservatives poisoning the discourse? Where have I seen that happen before? Hmmmm....

I guess you think blaming libertarians for starting the Klan isn't poisoning the discourse? Or willfully lying and twisting peoples' words isn't poisoning the discourse? Treating grown men and women who just happen to have a different view like children isn't poisoning the discourse?

You yourself have called people tea baggers and such. What does that sort of language do to the discourse? If you had any semblance of disconnect from your own views, you'd notice that the conservatives here aren't the ones doing the name calling.

 

[Small Market Guy]

The "Ignore" feature is a wonderful thing.

They need to upgrade the software to the newer version that completely blocks all mentions of the offending parties. As it is, we can still see that the little dogs are yapping their hateful nonsense, even if we can't see their exact words.