Letters to the Editor
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To put it another way
If you ignore your government and it bites you in the ass, perhaps you should blame yourself.
I say this to no one in particular, and of course it's not even a fair thing to say. But I think it's true.
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We don't have to reach agreement — It is sufficient that we each respect the other's point of view
Paul Dirks: Again you're looking at things from the point of view of the political actors rather than the audience. In science, there is something we can refer to as truth and a procedure that is followed to arrive at ever closer approximations to what that truth is. In politics, there is no such animal. I can insist that "All men are created equal" is a core immutable principle and someone else can insist that There is no greater duty than service to one's Country" is just as much a core certainty.
A little thought will reveal that these statements are just plain incompatable and no amount of "balance" is ever going to mesh these differing priorities. The best we can hope for is that free access to all available information and freedom from censorship will result in the best ideas rising to the top of the heap. Trusting either the government or corporate monopolies to ddo the job for us is a recipe for disaster.
The problem here is that you don't seem to understand what the fairness doctrine involves. Neither of these statements would be subject to the fairness doctrine. The fairness doctrine isn't about "balance", it's about fairness and accuracy. "Balance" is a Foxism where if there is a simple truth they have to tell a lie to balance it.
I don't have statistics but my feeling was that the fairness doctrine was not invoked all that often (and despite the claims of you and Mona, it is not the government that invokes it but those who feel that they have been portrayed inaccurately; the government just guarantees them that right). This is because the mere existence of the doctrine tended to keep reporting accurate (yes, I know, this was a different era of broadcast journalism).
But the fairness doctrine was in place from 1949 to 1987. Which has been the period of greatest disaster for the US? 1949-87 or 1988-2008?
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Anyone who is terrified of the (pre-Bush Admin) US government
read this:
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/28/8560/
The media ARE their own little nationalist government.
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Thanks for the great posts
Cocktailhag and Frankly.
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Frankly my dear..
The FCC still regulates obscenity on the airwaves, but personally I find a little bare titty on TV much less offensive than most of what Limbaugh says. But as long as he doesn't use obscene language, he is completely unaccountable for anything he says. The only people who can regulate him are his corporate sponsors. As long as he makes them money, whatever he says is fine with them. In fact, the more controversial, the better.
Exactly, it bears repeating.
When you have a very powerful effort to propagandize the population from once side and an incompetent and largely ineffective effort from the other, the powerful side is going to win up until the point where the fantasy propaganda deviates a bit too far from reality.
I'm not sure how far reality is going to have to deviate from the fantasy web spun by the media before the population is going to have the veil ripped from their eyes.
Four dollar plus gasoline is going to weaken the veil somewhat, watching those digits while you pump hi test into your Excursion with a V10 gets just a bit painful.
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Hi Chris
I've gone about 14 hours since my last blog post.
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@cocktailhag
Mona.... KPOJ, the local Air America affilliate here, beats all the the righties, hands down, put together, you name it. You sound like Bill O'Reilly when you make such inaccurate statements.
Well then, while purportedly channeling Bill O'Reilly, it seems I've caused you to show the FD is unnecessary even per your terms, because Air America is so successful in the radio market.
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@ 6:41? & DCLaw!....
NO one needs to flee UT because they weigh too much.
DCLaw1? If you play horseshoes @ DC's DoJ''s funerals/
O, Great!
Be plump.
Eat asparagus.
Be very huggable.
If you pre-pay a month of lotto-tickets, I'll read your DC blog!
Lawyers need a updated thesaurus. They are just mysterious?
There~forest thou, DCLaw1, do humble a`ya's to see a beech tree?
Okay. I no need a shower and a answer. Where is W.T.'s billion`$`lotto number?.
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@F,MD
(and despite the claims of you and Mona, it is not the government that invokes it but those who feel that they have been portrayed inaccurately; the government just guarantees them that right).
Yeah, and you know what you ended up with? My WI CBS local affiliate would report or editorialize on X, and then the equivalent of Johnny Carson's character, Floyd R. Turbo, would be given 90 seconds a week later to make a ninny of himself to insist on Y.
If you think you have been portrayed inaccurately, go on Air America and do a whole damned segment -- cocktailhag assures us that Air America is very popular, so it will undo any bad things Rush has to say about anyone.
But bottom line, the days of limited bandwidth being an issue on TeeVee or radio are coming to an end. "Radio" and video media are increasingly going to be as vast as the Internet.
Finally, if you think the end of implementing the FD and the rise of Rush explain what is wrong with the body politic, I'd say you fall for easy answers to more complex problems. Face it: the populace likes simpletons. Rush and Fox, not to mention the right blogosphere, give them authoritarian simpletons in abundance.
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Mona-ing Low
Face it: the populace likes simpletons. Rush and Fox, not to mention the right blogosphere, give them authoritarian simpletons in abundance.
Ah, libertarians. Their unstinting faith in the ability of people to govern themselves without government interference is always inspiring.
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@Frankly....
Lets get back to the orinal topic of Glenn's post which is the fact that the Cable channels are all carefully avoiding mention of the NYT expose of their use of ex-generals as propogandists.
Here we have a situation which the Fairness doctrine would be powerless to address but where competition among news organizations actually allowed the story to break. The New York Times had to sue in order to get the documents for their story via the Freedom of Information Act. Since they aren't (as far as I know) directly affiliated with any cable networks, they were able to report the story. Had the job been left to Time-Warner, no such luck.
In the run-up to the Iraq war, who would play the role of agreived party who required free time to rebut? Natalie Maines? Saddam Hussein?
I hope you can see that we agree on broad goals, and that I do see a role for government regulation, but regulating content remains a taboo as far as I'm concerned.