Talk Radio Under Fire

[sailaway21]

If anything good is to come out of this it will be a re-visiting of the actual meaning of free speech. From a constitutional perspective, free speech is political speech. You still have no free speech right to call a man's wife ugly and remain unscathed. the classic case being the yelling of, "Fire!" in the theater.

We propagate our free speech through the use of money. How else do we reach a wider audience for our speech. Perhaps someone with standing will eventually bring suit before the SC over campaign finance reform and it will be declared unconstitutional based upon it's limiting of free speech. The debate over talk radio should follow much the same path. Conservative talk radio is able to operate on a pay as you go basis largely due to the size of it's listenership and their apparent willingness to buy the products advertised on those shows. For whatever reason, liberal talk radio is unable to draw enough of an audience to attract advertisers. Advertisers don't care whom they sell to; they're just looking for the greatest market penetration per advert dollar. Liberals just need someone or some peoples to assert their free speech rights and financially back their talk radio programs. That they choose not to do so might have something to do with the fact that they've already got a nationwide, taxpayer subsidized, talk radio network; it's called NPR.

[N0NJY]

Well..... the fairness doctrine has struck here.

Someone logged into my account today, before I did.

Interesting, I wonder who could do that?

Why hasn't the guy who said he couldn't find anything about the fairness doctrine being revisited responded to the posts I made where it mentions the fairness doctrine has been revisited?

And who the hell logged into my account BEFORE me today? hmmmm

Curious.

[poopdeckpappy]

Well..... the fairness doctrine has struck here.

Someone logged into my account today, before I did.

Interesting, I wonder who could do that?

You didn't listern to Obama dressing down the Country today, He said if he ( Obama ) was to get anything around here, people need to stop listerning to NONJY also.

I swear to God, between you and Rush, this Administration is on the edge of collapse

[N0NJY]

Originally Posted by poopdeckpappy

You didn't listern to Obama dressing down the Country today, He said if he ( Obama ) was to get anything around here, people need to stop listerning to NONJY also.

I swear to God, between you and Rush, this Administration is on the edge of collapse

Gonna have to keep working on those podcasts I guess, now...

/chuckles

[N0NJY]

DEMS GET SET TO MUZZLE THE RIGHT

DEMS GET SET TO MUZZLE THE RIGHT - New York Post
By BRIAN C. ANDERSON <****** type="text/javascript">adsonar_placementId=1406860;adsonar_pid=871772;ads onar_ps=-1;adsonar_zw=300;adsonar_zh=250;adsonar_jv='ads.ad sonar.com';<****** language="JavaScript" src="http://js.adsonar.com/js/adsonar.js">
Last updated: 8:49 am
October 20, 2008
Posted: 4:51 am
October 20, 2008


SHOULD Barack Obama win the presidency and Democrats take full control of Congress, next year will see a real legislative attempt to bring back the Fairness Doctrine - and to diminish conservatives' influence on broadcast radio, the one medium they dominate.


Yes, the Obama campaign said some months back that the candidate doesn't seek to re-impose this regulation, which, until Ronald Reagan's FCC phased it out in the 1980s, required TV and radio broadcasters to give balanced airtime to opposing viewpoints or face steep fines or even loss of license. But most Democrats - including party elders Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry and Al Gore - strongly support the idea of mandating "fairness."


Would a President Obama veto a new Fairness Doctrine if Congress enacted one? It's doubtful.

The Fairness Doctrine was an astonishingly bad idea. It's a too-tempting power for government to abuse. When the doctrine was in effect, both Democratic and Republican administrations regularly used it to harass critics on radio and TV.


Second, a new Fairness Doctrine would drive political talk radio off the dial. If a station ran a big-audience conservative program like, say, Laura Ingraham's, it would also have to run a left-leaning alternative. But liberals don't do well on talk radio, as the failure of Air America and indeed all other liberal efforts in the medium to date show. Stations would likely trim back conservative shows so as to avoid airing unsuccessful liberal ones.


Then there's all the lawyers you'd have to hire to respond to the regulators measuring how much time you devoted to this topic or that. Too much risk and hassle, many radio executives would conclude. Why not switch formats to something less charged - like entertainment or sports coverage?

[N0NJY]

The Constitutional Right to Listen by Peter Ferrara on National Review Online
January 28, 2009 4:00 AM

The Constitutional Right to Listen
McCain-Feingold and the Fairness Doctrine hurt more than speakers’ rights.

By Peter Ferrara

We usually think of freedom of speech as involving the right of speakers to speak, whether through public addresses, in writing, or over radio and television airwaves. But the courts have recognized an additional dimension to First Amendment free speech rights: the right to listen and watch. This right takes center stage in a current challenge to the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law and could play a role in the debate about the Fairness Doctrine.

Every circuit appeals court has acknowledged the right to listen and watch. For example, in 2003’s Rossignol v. Voorhaar, the Fourth Circuit held that the First Amendment protects the right to receive information and ideas.


Similarly, in 1999’s U.S. West, Inc. v. F.C.C., the Tenth Circuit held that the two components of effective speech are a speaker and an audience, and that a restriction on either of these components is a restriction on speech.


In 2005’s de la O v. Housing Authority of City of El Paso, the Fifth Circuit found that the right to receive information is just as protected as the right to convey it.

The U.S. Supreme Court has also recognized this right. In 1986’s Pacific Gas and Elec. Co. v. Public Utilities Comm’n of California, the Court held that the constitutional guarantee of free speech protects significant societal interests wholly apart from the speaker’s interest in self-expression, including the public’s interest in receiving information. And in 2000’s U.S.v. Playboy Entertainment Group, Inc., the Court ruled that, under the First Amendment’s free-speech clause, the citizen is entitled to seek out or reject certain ideas or influences without government interference or control.

All this raises the question of whether McCain-Feingold, which restricts political speech by both campaign and non-campaign organizations, violates citizens’ right to hear pertinent messages. Thanks to a new case, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court may answer that question.

In 2007, the non-profit group Citizens United financed from its own corporate treasury the production of a feature-length documentary film about Hillary Clinton. The movie focused on past Hillary scandals including the firing and subsequent criminal prosecution of the White House Travel Office staff, repeated campaign-finance-law violations, and the presidential pardon—while Hillary was seeking the endorsement of Puerto Rican activists for her Senate campaign—of a Puerto Rican terrorist convicted of murder.

The Federal Election Commission prohibited broadcast of the movie in 2008, when Hillary was running for president, because its financing did not comply with McCain-Feingold restrictions. Last week the American Civil Rights Union (of which I am general counsel) filed a brief with the Supreme Court supporting Citizens United’s argument that this broadcast prohibition violated the Constitution’s free-speech guarantee. One of the brief’s arguments was that the prohibition violated the rights of citizens who wanted to watch and listen to the movie.

This overlooked constitutional right is also central in the possibly pending battle over readoption of the Fairness Doctrine by the Obama administration. Besides the constitutional free-speech rights of broadcasters and talk-show hosts, the doctrine would violate the audience’s constitutionally protected right to listen.

Those advancing the Fairness Doctrine’s revival are not interested in balance; they are interested in shutting down critics. Obama revealed his thinking about talk radio in his recent attack on Rush Limbaugh, in which he urged Republicans not to listen to the popular host. This indicates how much trouble Obama thinks talk radio is for his agenda, which may mean that his interest in using the Fairness Doctrine to shut it down will be high.

The coming years, then, are fraught with hope and peril for First Amendment rights—not just the right to speak, but also the right to listen.

— Peter Ferrara is general counsel of the American Civil Rights Union and director of entitlement and budget policy for the Institute for Policy Innovation.

[N0NJY]

Jailed For An Insult?
by Robert Spencer
01/28/2009

Jailed For An Insult? - HUMAN EVENTS

“You can’t just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done,” said Barack Obama to Republican leaders Friday. The new president seems to want to make sure that as few people listen to Rush Limbaugh as possible. Senator Mike Enzi (R-WY) warned Thursday that “legislation is brewing on Capitol Hill that would take away free speech from broadcasters by reinstating a law” -- the infamous “Fairness Doctrine” -- “that would require talk shows to provide equal time coverage of opposing viewpoints on any issues they discuss.”

This would wipe out conservative talk shows like Limbaugh’s by mandating that programming reflecting a liberal perspective be aired for “balance” if the conservative shows are aired at all -- and with the mainstream media already heavily tilted toward the Left, this would effectively stifle voices that dissent from the Left/liberal line. “The ‘fairness doctrine’ is a violation of free speech,” said Enzi.

Nor is that all. The White House website pledges that “President Obama and Vice President Biden will strengthen federal hate crimes legislation…” The problem with this, of course, is that “hate” is in the eye of the beholder, so “hate crime” laws are essentially tools for enforcing officially-endorsed views. It’s another form of censorship.

“Hate crimes” legislation begets “hate speech” legislation. A cautionary tale is unfolding in the Netherlands this week about how dangerous those can be,

Proving that such tools in the hands of the powerful enable them to silence the powerless and crush dissent, the Amsterdam Court of Appeal ordered that Geert Wilders, a member of the Dutch Parliament and maker of the notorious film Fitna, be prosecuted for “incitement to hatred and discrimination based on his statements in various media about moslims [sic] and their belief. In addition, the Court of Appeal considers criminal prosecution obvious for the insult of Islamic worshippers because of the comparisons made by Wilders of the islam [sic] with the nazism.”

“The insult of Islamic worshippers”? The very idea of trying someone for insulting someone else is absurd, and unmasks the Dutch initiative as an attempt by the nation’s political elites to silence one of their most formidable critics. The one who judges what is an actionable insult and what isn’t is the one who has the power to control the discourse -- and that’s what the prosecution of Wilders is all about. If insulting someone is a crime, can those who are insulted by hate speech laws bring suit against their framers?

The action against Wilders is taking place against the backdrop of the 57-government Organization of the Islamic Conference’s efforts at the United Nations to silence speech that they deem critical of Islam -- including “defamation of Islam” that goes under the “pretext” of “freedom of expression, counter terrorism or national security.”

If they succeed in doing this, Europeans and Americans will be rendered mute, and thus defenseless, in the face of the advancing jihad and attempt to impose Sharia on the West -- in fact, one of the key elements of the laws for dhimmis, non-Muslims subjugated under Islamic rule, is that they are never critical of Islam, Muhammad, or the Qur’an. Thus this initiative not only aids the advance of Sharia in the West, but is itself an element of that advance.

But of course, it couldn’t happen here: freedom of speech could never disappear in America, right? After all, we have the First Amendment. But the Fairness Doctrine initiative shows that its protections can be chipped away. And “hate speech” laws could be justified by a declaration that free speech is still a constitutional right, but after all, every right has its limits: “hate speech” will be specifically exempted from its protections -- and “hate speech” will be defined to encompass speaking honestly about the actual texts and teachings of Islam that contain exhortations to violence and assertions of supremacism, unless one is referencing such material approvingly as a believer.

For to speak of such things in any other way would be to “insult” Muslims, as has Geert Wilders.

The looming battle over the Fairness Doctrine -- Doctrine essentially an attempt to muzzle political dissent -- will reveal a great deal about what opponents of Islamization stateside can expect next.

Lovers of freedom should be watching the Wilders case very closely -- as President Obama is already making abundantly clear -- it could happen here.

[N0NJY]

OBAMA WATCH CENTRAL
White House plan puts bull's-eye on talk shows
Posted agenda issues warning about new 'obligation' review
Posted: January 26, 2009
8:29 pm Eastern

By Bob Unruh

Barack Obama

The White House is promising new reviews of the "obligations" to the government by broadcasters who "occupy the nation's spectrum" just as the president has targeted conservative talk radio icon Rush Limbaugh for a public attack, raising concerns over the possible restoration of the "Fairness Doctrine," a policy that failed as unneeded and unconstitutional two decades ago.

Paul Ibrahim of NorthStarWriters.com cited Obama's warning to congressional Republicans that "you can't just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done" in suggesting the president has become the "driving force" behind a new "systematic" plan to "intimidate and demonize Obama's opponents."

That such a campaign was launched only days after Obama's inauguration is "tremendously perturbing," he wrote.

"Welcome to the politics of hope 'n' change. Obama's startling attempt to hang Limbaugh's scalp on the wall is a warning that the new ruler does not want unity – he demands it," Ibrahim wrote.

(Story continues below)



On Obama's agenda, according to his White House website, is the goal to "encourage diversity in media ownership."

Obama elaborates on the site that his aim is to "encourage diversity in the ownership of broadcast media, promote the development of new media outlets for expression of diverse viewpoints, and clarify the public interest obligations of broadcasters who occupy the nation's spectrum."

The plan apparently aligns with longstanding Democratic suggestions to resurrect the "Fairness Doctrine."

The policy was abandoned in 1987 under President Reagan when there were 75 radio talk shows in the U.S. Reagan opposed the policy because it required broadcast TV and radio programs to air "opposing views" on political issues, which had the practical effect of virtually eliminating opinion programs.



Since abandonment of the Fairness Doctrine, the number of radio talk shows has risen to more than 3,000.

WND founder and editor Joseph Farah long has warned about Democrats' plans to revive restrictions on the airwaves.

"If the Democrats and their me-too Republican allies are successful at sacking talk radio, there will be no stopping them," Farah warned. "Broadcast will be first. Then they will go after the Internet with taxes and new regulations and hate-crimes laws. And when they succeed at muzzling dissenting voices there, they will even turn to print. Remember, we are dealing with a neo-fascist mentality here."

Many fear the Fairness Doctrine would drive talk radio hosts – like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Michael Savage – out of business.

During the presidential campaign, spokesman Michael Ortiz indicated Obama thought the debate was "a distraction."

But author Brad O'Leary examined Obama's legal and organizational attempts to silence media detractors during the presidential race and came to a different conclusion.

"Barack Obama has shown a stunning lack of tolerance for free speech throughout the course of [his] campaign," said O'Leary. "His presidency, combined with supermajorities for Democrats in Congress, would almost certainly bring back the so-called 'Fairness Doctrine' and allow the Democrats to snuff out any broadcasters with whom they disagree."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., affirmed her support to Human Events reporter John Gizzi for a "Fairness" policy, and Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., told radio host Jim Villanucci, "I would want this station and all stations to have to present a balanced perspective and different points of view, instead of always hammering away at one side of the political [spectrum]."

Ibrahim noted the president's public verbal condemnation of Limbaugh makes clear his "rejection" of the old "Bush" politics.

"You see, President Bush did not launch assaults on private citizens, nor did he ever label anyone as 'unpatriotic' for disagreeing with him. Thus, Obama and his friends are now effecting the change they promised. Welcome to their 'new' politics," he wrote.

The National Review's Byron York said Obama's criticism of Limbaugh makes it appear he considers the talk host "the true leader of the Republican opposition."

York said Limbaugh responded that Obama was trying to make the arguments about the radio show instead of Obama's actual plans.

"To make the argument about me instead of his plan makes sense from his perspective," Limbaugh told York. "Obama's plan would buy votes for the Democrat Party, in the same way FDR's New Deal established majority power for 50 years of Democrat rule, and it would also simultaneously seriously damage any hope of future tax cuts.

"I believe his stimulus is aimed at re-establishing 'eternal' power for the Democrat Party rather than stimulating the economy because anyone with a brain knows this is NOT how you stimulate the economy," Limbaugh continued. "If I can be made to serve as a distraction, then there is that much less time debating the merits of this TRILLION dollar debacle."

Limbaugh added: "One more thing, Byron. Your publication and website have documented Obama's ties to the teachings of Saul Alinksy while he was community organizing in Chicago. Here is Rule 13 of Alinksy's Rules for Radicals: 'Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.'"

Michael G. Franc, writing on the National Review's "The Corner" blog, noted that attorney general nominee Eric Holder also has refused to commit to opposing to Fairness Doctrine.

Obama's choice to head his FCC transition team, Democrat Henry Rivera, added to fear in media circles that the Fairness Doctrine might return to silence conservative talk radio.

Brian Maloney of the blog The Radio Equalizer said in his post "Meet Talk's Executioner" he believes Rivera will use his position to bring back the law for that very purpose.

Rivera, according to Maloney, "is expected to lead the push to dismantle commercial talk radio that is favored by a number of Democratic Party senators. Rivera will play a pivotal role in preventing critics from having a public voice during Obama's tenure in office."

[N0NJY]

"We don't wanna bring back that FCC thing, but we sure want people to stop HATING!"

NHMC To Ask FCC For Inquiry Into Hate Speech on Radio and TV

Hispanic Media Coalition not looking to bring back fairness doctrine

By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 1/27/2009 12:20:00 PM MT

Posted at 5:13 pm. ET

The National Hispanic Media Coalition Wednesday will ask the FCC Wednesday to launch an inquiry into hate speech on radio and TV, but is not looking to bring back the so-called fairness doctrine.


“We are asking the FCC to open an inquiry to raise public awareness, to collect information about the extent and effect of hate speech, and to explore options for countervailing or reducing the negative impacts of such speech,” said Jessica Gonzalez, an attorney with the Institute for Public Representation, which will file the petition.


Inez Gonzalez, a spokeswoman for the NHMC, said that those options do not include asking the FCC to reimpose the fairness doctrine, which once required broadcasters to air both sides of controversial issues. She said the effort is more about raising awareness of the problem.


“We are very respectful of the first amendment and free speech," said NHMC President Alex Nogales in announcing a new three-pronged effort to combat what he called the "hateful rhetoric, particularly against the immigrant minority communities, espoused by irresponsible TV and radio talk show host on American airwaves." The debate over immigration reform has been a staple on talk radio, for example.


In addition to asking the FCC to open its inquiry, NHMC will unveil a study quantifying hate speech in commercial talk radio and ask the National Telecommunications & Information Administration to update its 1993 report, The Role of Telecommunications in Hate Crimes.


The group says it expects that an updated report will conclude that "there are in fact causal relationships between hate speech on radio and TV and violence against vulnerable groups."

[N0NJY]

There's some articles about the "Fairness Doctrine".

Initially somewhere I think in this thread someone stated that this is "overstated", and in a couple of other threads I've been accused of such things as being a "Fear-monger" or "alarmist".

Those are simply not true.

I have certain principles upon which I base my life, my writing, my goals, agenda and any other names you'd like to call what I do.

So, before I go much further here, I'd like to give you all some insight as to why I do what I do.... bear with me a few minutes (and if you don't like what I am writing, simply go away....)

First a couple of definitions.

"Fear Mongering" (or scaremongering) is the use of fear tactics to influence opinions or change the actions (or minds) of other people towards some specific end.

"Alarmism" or an "Alarmist": Alarmism is the production of needless warnings. The term is usually used to downplay the warnings.

In other words - in both cases these phrases are used to make an attempt to discredit others, usually. There are certainly both alarmists and fearmongers out there, but I'm not one, and here is why.

I believe strongly in the Constitution of the United States, and I have a philosophy that is based upon a statement by Edmund Burke, which goes: Edmund Burke said, "The only thing necessary for the triumph [of evil] is for good men to do nothing."

To sit and only listen, to do nothing at all allows the slow erosion of personal and individual liberties.

My basic "motto" is "Expect the worst, but hope for the best". Note, I don't say PRAY, I say HOPE. President Obama doesn't have any more link to the phrase "hope" than I or anyone else here.

By the same token, no one in the United States has any limitations on their individual liberties based on the Constitution. And yet, every day of our lives a new law is being legislated, or some group is trying to get something called "hate speech", or something else made illegal.

Those things are indeed limitations placed on our individual freedoms.

My points made on this site and other sites are not "fear mongering" because I attempt to explain and INFORM, educate and show facts. Fear Mongering entails the use of exaggeration and lies. I do neither.

Perhaps to some degree I might be an "Alarmist" - but only a small degree.

My job, my life, my work, all depend up on accuracy, facts and information and so do my individual freedoms and liberties I enjoy living in and being a citizen of the United States of America.

Thus, when it comes down to my life, liberty and pursuit of happiness - those things are not given for free. They were taken by the blood of men and women before me and given my own oaths to my offices in the past, I can not allow others to simply walk over the graves of those who've gone before us.

Our INDIVIDUAL liberties are more important than any government entity or single man or bureaucrat holding an office, from the dog catcher up to President and are NOT to be taken lightly or ignored, or pretend they come from "higher up". They do not, they come from "HIGHER UP". Way higher than a single man or President, or Congress or a taxation body.

Thus, the First Amendment rights in the Bill of Rights are decidedly and directly applied to each of us, the media, religion all equally.

That means we have the Second Amendment to ENSURE that we keep the First rights in place.

To those who think that banning guns is the way to progress, it's not, it's merely a way for Progressives to remove the rest of your rights, including but not limited to the Freedom of Speech we enjoy here in the United States.

So - there is reason a-plenty to speak out NOW about these things, and to jealously guard those rights in whatever manner we must to prevent them from being taken.

That there's even a slight suggestion to force a "fairness doctrine" on the media ought to be screamed about high and low, near and far by every person in the media, and without. NOT just Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity.

The Left ought to be screaming too - so that the issue goes away once and for all time.