Fred Martinez's Monitor

OBAMA'S PLAN TO KILL TALK RADIO

Obama's objective in "opening up the airwaves to as many diverse points of view as possible" is putting doctrinaire leftists on boards of directors and installing them as program directors and in other management positions. He wants programming decisions made not by market forces but based on ideological considerations.

Some critics of talk radio want a shorter renewal period for broadcast licenses. They would force broadcasters to prove that they're "operating in the public interest" -- by meeting regularly with "community spokesmen," incorporating their recommendations in programming decisions and putting representatives of various leftwing interest groups in charge of what goes out over the airwaves.

Some have even suggested a special levy for stations that fail to meet their "public interest obligations" -- a fine which would go toward funding the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Only the left could think of something so diabolical -- forcing private stations to subsidize their competition. National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting System are already rolling in government funding. You're more likely to find diverse viewpoints in Beijing's People's Daily.

Don Feder is a former Boston Herald writer who is now a political/communications consultant. He also maintains his own website, DonFeder.com.

OBAMA AND THE CONSPIRACY TO KILL TALK RADIO

GrassTopsUSA Exclusive Commentary

By Don Feder

07-21-08

After eight years in the wilderness, the left expects a clean sweep in the 2008 election -- the presidency (and with it the federal bureaucracy) and larger majorities in both houses of Congress.

Looking ahead, liberals are determined to derail potential opposition to their plans to accelerate the deconstruction of America. Consequently, they have targeted talk radio. Bringing back the Fairness Doctrine is just one facet of their scheme to eviscerate the only part of the media controlled by conservatives.

Crucial to an understanding of the jihad against talk radio is this: The left will do anything to gag its opponents. From the college campus to the halls of Congress (think campus speech codes, think hate crimes legislation, think speech-suppression zones surrounding abortion clinics), liberals are the chief proponents of censorship in America.

On July 23, the Simon Wiesenthal Center's New York Tolerance Center will host the launch of "Shock Jocks: Hate Speech & Talk Radio" by Rory O'Connor, a book which indicts talk radio as "highly politicized, overly partisan and often factually challenged" -- unlike, say, The New York Times, AKA, Mainstream Media Hacks for Obama.

But that's not all. According to its cover, this penetrating analysis (endorsed by Walter Cronkite, the dean of liberal media manipulators) exposes the "dirty secret" of radio talk shows -- how "they use the guise of 'not being politically correct' to ratchet up their anti-gay, anti-woman and overtly racist language." In other words, they're against same-sex "marriage," reject feminist mythology and oppose racial quotas. Oh, the venom! Oh, the malice!

The left uses allegations of hate speech to set the stage for censorship. In its invitation, the Wiesenthal Center hyperventilates: "Hate speech can lead to hate crimes. And hate speech has no role on the public airwaves." Apparently, the First Amendment doesn't apply to anything the left deems "hate speech."

FYI, a friend of mine -- a Jewish conservative -- noted the exquisite irony here: Conservative talk-show hosts tend to be the most outspoken defenders of Israel anywhere in the U.S. media, while their counterparts in the mainstream media are overwhelmingly anti-Israel. Like the Anti-Defamation League, the Wiesenthal Center carries water for the left in the guise of fighting anti-Semitism.

"Shock Jocks" is just the latest manifestation of the left's obsession with talk radio.

Liberals have been smearing talk radio for more than a decade. In 1995, before anything was known about the perpetrators of the Oklahoma City bombing, then President William Jefferson Clinton laid the blame for the carnage on the doorstep of the "many angry voices" of conservative talk radio. The only surprise here is that his Feloniousness didn't also blame talk-radio for the JFK assassination, the Wounded Knee massacre and the Black Death.

Fast forward a dozen years. In 2007, the Center for American Progress, a leftie think-tank, issued a report asserting that, behind the microphone, conservatives outnumber liberals 9 to 1. Being anti-market, the left is incapable of understanding any exchange -- including the marketplace of ideas. The dominance of conservative talk-show hosts couldn't possibly have anything to do with the popularity of conservative ideas. Instead, for the left, the ideological imbalance must be evidence of something sinister.

Shortly after the release of the Center's report, Sen. James Inhofe (Republican, Oklahoma), swears he heard Senators Hillary Clinton (Delusional, New York) and Barbara Boxer (Daft, California) fretting about the influence of "extremist" talk radio and the need for a "legislative fix" (left-speak for "a stake through the heart."). Both ladies deny conspiring against the First Amendment.

Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin -- Rush Limbaugh calls him Dick Turban -- urges: "It's time to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine. I have the old-fashioned attitude that when Americans hear both sides of the story, they're in a better position to make a decision." Naturally, Durbin/Turban doesn't apply his hear-both-sides axiom to network newscasts (where the left outnumbers the right infinity to Fox News), America's most influential newspapers -- The New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, USA TODAY et al. -- or any other segment of the media that the left controls the way Islam reigns supreme in Mecca.

On June 24, at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was asked if she supports reinstatement of the misnamed Fairness Doctrine, to which the most powerful Democrat in D.C. unhesitatingly replied "yes." Pelosi has kept the Broadcaster Freedom Act from coming to the House floor for a vote. The bill, sponsored by Congressman Mike Pence, would prevent the Federal Communications Commission from imposing this horse-and-buggy measure on a digital age. A discharge petition, to pry the bill from committee, was signed by 200 Republicans and zero Democrats.

Ah, the Fairness Doctrine -- the left's weapon of mass media destruction scheduled to detonate over talk radio. The FCC instituted said doctrine in 1949, when talk radio was 30 years in the future, television (limited to three or four channels) was just becoming popular and daily newspapers were the primary source of political opinion.

The Fairness Doctrine (which is anything but) required balance -- a "reasonable opportunity for ample play for free and fair competition of opposing views ... (for all) issues of importance to the public." In practice, it meant that if a TV or radio station say editorialized in favor of one side of an issue, it had to provide equal time to the other side.

In 1987, the Reagan FCC repealed the grotesque anachronism. Now, the left is panting to bring it back.

This is how the Fairness Doctrine would be applied to talk radio: If a station broadcast three hours of Rush Limbaugh -- or Sean Hannity or Bill O'Reilly or Dr. Dobson -- in the afternoon, it would have to provide equal time to The Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright, Father Michael Pfleger or Osama bin Laden.

The problem is no one would listen to the later, hence it would sell no advertising and talk stations would very quickly switch to sports, weather, pet psychologists or 1970s' elevator music -- exactly what the left intends.

It is absolutely true: The right rules talk radio, because radio is the most market-driven medium.

"Talkers" magazine publishes its annual "Heavy Hundred" index of the most popular talk show hosts in America. In 2008, its Top 20 is dominated by conservatives like Limbaugh, Hannity, Michael Savage, Dr. Laura Schlessinger, Glen Beck and Laura Ingraham (#s 1 to 6, respectively). The top 20 includes Mike Gallagher, Neal Boortz, Bill O'Reilly, Mancow, Mark Levin and Michael Medved. There's one liberal in the top 10 and only four in the top 20.

The reasons are obvious:

1. Because this is the only medium where conservative opinion is prominent -- patriots, Christians and free-market/limited government types flock to talk radio.

2. Liberals are boring; conservatives are fun. Generally, those on the left are dour, pedantic, nasty and hysterical. Talk radio addicts like fast-paced commentary, factual analysis and humor, all of which is in short supply on the left.

3. Liberals are incapable of debate. Essentially, the left's position on any issue is: Either you believe this, or you're Hitler, a drooling idiot or both. Conservatives are eager to engage in a dialogue. The left avoids open discussion like the plague, which tends to make liberals deadly when they get behind the microphone -- witness the demise of Air America, Rosie's O'Donnell's exit from "The View" or the fact that Al Franken (failed talk-show host) had to run for the Senate to get anyone to listen to him.

The Fairness Doctrine is one appointment away from being resurrected. The FCC is governed by five Commissioners -- two from each party. The chairman is a presidential appointee. Obama wins, appoints a new chairman and there's a huge bulls eye drawn around talk radio.

The Senator claims he's opposed to reinstating the Fairness Doctrine. If so, it's because he has something more ominous in mind.

Obama Press Secretary Michael Oritz says the candidate "considers this debate (over the Fairness Doctrine) 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... That is why Sen. Obama supports media-ownership caps, network neutrality, public broadcasting, as well as increased minority ownership of broadcast and print outlets."

Not surprisingly, Obama's position is almost identical to that of the Center for American Progress, whose spokesman argues that the FCC should impose on radio stations "ownership rules ... (which) will create greater local diversity of programming, news, and commentary. And we call for more localism by putting teeth into the licensing rules. But we do not call for a return to the Fairness Doctrine."

Dick Morris sums up this soft approach to censorship. In his new book, "Fleeced," Morris writes, "In other words, it isn't enough for liberals to insist on elbowing their way in front of the microphone -- they want to own the station!"

Once you cut through the soothing Obama cliches, his plans for talk radio are chillingly apparent.

When the left says "diverse viewpoints," it means "our viewpoints." It wants diversity only where it's in the minority. Have you ever heard of liberals complaining about the lack of political diversity on college faculties?

Obama's objective in "opening up the airwaves to as many diverse points of view as possible" is putting doctrinaire leftists on boards of directors and installing them as program directors and in other management positions. He wants programming decisions made not by market forces but based on ideological considerations.

Some critics of talk radio want a shorter renewal period for broadcast licenses. They would force broadcasters to prove that they're "operating in the public interest" -- by meeting regularly with "community spokesmen," incorporating their recommendations in programming decisions and putting representatives of various leftwing interest groups in charge of what goes out over the airwaves.

Some have even suggested a special levy for stations that fail to meet their "public interest obligations" -- a fine which would go toward funding the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Only the left could think of something so diabolical -- forcing private stations to subsidize their competition. National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting System are already rolling in government funding. You're more likely to find diverse viewpoints in Beijing's People's Daily than you are on the average NPR or PBS station.

The foregoing amounts to stealth Fairness. It makes sense that, in anticipation of its new clout in Washington, the left is intent on silencing the opposition.

Talk radio has demonstrated its clout, most recently by defeating last year's amnesty bill. Millions of illegal aliens and their supporters took to the streets demanding another amnesty. The mainstream media thought it was a swell idea. Republican RINOS lined up with eager Democrats.

All that stood in their way were immigration reform groups like FAIR, GrassTopsUSA and the Minutemen -- and talk radio. When it came to a Senate showdown, Limbaugh and his colleagues turned around 17 Senators in 72 hours, a heretofore unheard of feat.

The left wants no repeat of that when Barack is in the White House and the Democrats hold sway in Congress.

When you cast a presidential vote in November, you won't just be voting on federal judges or the future security of our nation, you'll also help to decide the fate of talk radio -- a medium that's gone from 360 stations in 1990 to over 1,300 today.

If there's an authentic voice of the people, this is it, which is why the left both fears and hates it. Its future is in your hands.



Don Feder is a former Boston Herald writer who is now a political/communications consultant. He also maintains his own website, DonFeder.com.

posted by Fred Martinez @ 9:18 AM