In The Sunday, May 11th Sacramento Bee, Sue Wilson outlines her reasoning for a return to a failed policy of many years ago: the falsely-labeled "Fairness Doctrine", as part of an article bemoaning the lack of liberal talk on Sacramento Radio as well as nationwide.
It would take hours to do a point-by-point rebuttal to some of the almost laughable claims in parts of this article....although, to be fair, Wilson does make some very valid points, especially arguing for re-instatement of ownership limitations within a single market.
What cracked me up most was the claim that on NPR "one is as likely to hear a Republican's views as a Democrat's"...which any objective ear knows is patently false. While NPR is not the far-left extremist’s network it was 30 years ago, the news is clearly slanted left, and the numbers of liberal commentators far exceed those expressing conservative viewpoints. I worked at a NPR affiliate for years and still listen once in a while....it generally uses the trick of opening with a liberal slant, culling a liberal's soundbite, offering briefer opposing views, closing with a liberal rebuttal and story close, then patting itself on the back for being "fair and balanced"...all, by the way, being heavily subsidized with Federal taxpayer funding under the guise of a shell organization called The Corporation For Public Broadcasting.
Link to the story: http://www.sacbee.com/110/story/927485.html
Wilson also slants her story with the incredible argument that The FCC & radio corporate giants are the sole reasons for liberal talk's total abject failure. Wilson's article doesn't even mention Air America and its multi-leveled collapse. It had ample start-up funding, gads of totally free publicity, access in major markets....then put on an unlistenable product that died.
Yes, in the last book, 1240 showed some increases....but from a steady record of dismal ratings and failure to sell spots...You see, Sue, most advertisers want their costly ads to be heard by listeners; only a few buy spots to support a station's political agenda. {And if you read Paula Nelson's quotes, damn few of them did.}
There was talk around 2005 {when I was at KFBK} that Clear Channel was actively attempting to create an alternative "progressive talk" network, with the idea to counter-program some conservative talk programming {even their own} and cover all aspects of the talk spectrum. From what I understand, this was deemed a cash burner, and the Mays Family decided not to add to the red ink and instead opted to prepare CC for partial sale.
Look.....there really are only a few stations with signal strength, dial position and adequate capitalization to be mega-successes. In just the past 2-3 years, Sacramento had both 1240 & 1320 kill themselves with 24/7 Bush-Bashing, and both rightly gave up the ghost and decided they might try to actually make money with a different format.
To serve "The Public Interest" does NOT mean you must air a "yes" for every "no"....there are dozens of channels that can challenge you with opposing views, if they so desire. Bringing back the "UN-Fairness" Doctrine is just another attempt to silence conservative talk under the false guise of "being fair"... If broadcasters are faced with requirements to broadcast formats/opinions proven unprofitable, the hope of some is they will just silence all the political talk and go back to playing the latest hits {if regulatory boards and trade organizations don't price themselves off the air}, and political argument will be left to, well, the left.... on tiny stations and liberal fixtures like KPFA.
If liberal...excuse me....."progressive" talk were marketable, others would try it....but they've seen the failures of the recent past and choose not to waste their time...or ours.
It would take hours to do a point-by-point rebuttal to some of the almost laughable claims in parts of this article....although, to be fair, Wilson does make some very valid points, especially arguing for re-instatement of ownership limitations within a single market.
What cracked me up most was the claim that on NPR "one is as likely to hear a Republican's views as a Democrat's"...which any objective ear knows is patently false. While NPR is not the far-left extremist’s network it was 30 years ago, the news is clearly slanted left, and the numbers of liberal commentators far exceed those expressing conservative viewpoints. I worked at a NPR affiliate for years and still listen once in a while....it generally uses the trick of opening with a liberal slant, culling a liberal's soundbite, offering briefer opposing views, closing with a liberal rebuttal and story close, then patting itself on the back for being "fair and balanced"...all, by the way, being heavily subsidized with Federal taxpayer funding under the guise of a shell organization called The Corporation For Public Broadcasting.
Link to the story: http://www.sacbee.com/110/story/927485.html
Wilson also slants her story with the incredible argument that The FCC & radio corporate giants are the sole reasons for liberal talk's total abject failure. Wilson's article doesn't even mention Air America and its multi-leveled collapse. It had ample start-up funding, gads of totally free publicity, access in major markets....then put on an unlistenable product that died.
Yes, in the last book, 1240 showed some increases....but from a steady record of dismal ratings and failure to sell spots...You see, Sue, most advertisers want their costly ads to be heard by listeners; only a few buy spots to support a station's political agenda. {And if you read Paula Nelson's quotes, damn few of them did.}
There was talk around 2005 {when I was at KFBK} that Clear Channel was actively attempting to create an alternative "progressive talk" network, with the idea to counter-program some conservative talk programming {even their own} and cover all aspects of the talk spectrum. From what I understand, this was deemed a cash burner, and the Mays Family decided not to add to the red ink and instead opted to prepare CC for partial sale.
Look.....there really are only a few stations with signal strength, dial position and adequate capitalization to be mega-successes. In just the past 2-3 years, Sacramento had both 1240 & 1320 kill themselves with 24/7 Bush-Bashing, and both rightly gave up the ghost and decided they might try to actually make money with a different format.
To serve "The Public Interest" does NOT mean you must air a "yes" for every "no"....there are dozens of channels that can challenge you with opposing views, if they so desire. Bringing back the "UN-Fairness" Doctrine is just another attempt to silence conservative talk under the false guise of "being fair"... If broadcasters are faced with requirements to broadcast formats/opinions proven unprofitable, the hope of some is they will just silence all the political talk and go back to playing the latest hits {if regulatory boards and trade organizations don't price themselves off the air}, and political argument will be left to, well, the left.... on tiny stations and liberal fixtures like KPFA.
If liberal...excuse me....."progressive" talk were marketable, others would try it....but they've seen the failures of the recent past and choose not to waste their time...or ours.
