Mr. Moderate

There is no doubt that right-wing conservatives own the medium of talk radio. The strategy has been quite simple: 1) Elect a Republican President; 2) Get the FCC to gut any remaining ownership limits not already gutted during the Reagan administration; and 3) Buy every radio station possible, while creating advertising boycotts of as many radio stations as possible that are not owned by right-wing conservatives. That last part came to light during the Air America bankruptcy proceeding when a list was made public of those companies which had forbidden their advertising agencies to buy any advertisements on Air America. The list read like a “Who’s Who” of corporate America. They didn’t like any left wing views being expressed anywhere on the airwaves, so they strove to starve the liberals off the air and ultimately purchase all of the stations who dared to run Air America.

The number of allowable radio stations is an extremely limited number, reflecting the fact that the design of radios means that radio frequencies allocated to use by radio stations are very scarce indeed. Most markets have their full allotment of radio stations, and most stations in each market are owned by right-wing conservatives affiliated in some way with one of the main right-wing radio networks like Clear Channel.

The Internet has a different problem with fairness. The barriers to entry for radio station ownership are extremely high. But the barriers to entry for web site ownership are extremely low. There is virtually no limit to the number of web sites that can be put up on the Internet. So, to try to control access to liberal web sites, the right-wing owners of huge media conglomerates (like Cox and Time-Warner) have proposed to charge web site owners a fee for access to their “audience” of web site visitors. This idea is being opposed by everybody from MoveOn.Org to the Christian Coalition, all of whom feel they have a First Amendment right to be viewed by anybody who has Internet access. These groups are sponsoring “equal access” legislation, the intent of which is to prohibit downstream “user fees” from being imposed by Internet Service Providers for allowing their customers access to web sites hosted by other Internet Service Providers.

You would think that the broad range of public support for “equal access” would ensure its passage into law. Nothing could be further from the truth. The big communications companies and the big media companies all have lots of dollars to wave in front of political leaders and they are all demanding the opposite of “equal access” in return for contributing those dollars to the election efforts of said political leaders. So, the legislation is stalled as the public who wants the law can’t match the contributions of the business owners who want a very different law; perhaps even the exact opposite law.

And to combat right-wing domination of the talk radio medium, some Democrats have proposed to revive the so-called “Fairness Doctrine” that was originated decades ago and abandoned (you guessed it) under Reagan. That doctrine stated that, because the owners of radio stations were trustees of a public asset (the radio frequencies over which they were allowed to broadcast), they must provide “fair and balanced” coverage of political controversies so as to better inform the public. (You were wondering where Fox News got its slogan? Too bad it is just a slogan for Fox, and nowhere near the actual truth, as the movie “Outfoxed” clearly demonstrates.)

The television network news used to be the pride of American journalism. Now, it is just another profit center for the TV networks. As such, it needs to attract an audience, and the truth be damned! So, the network news anchors are now “entertainers” rather than journalists. Walter Cronkite has given way to Katie Couric. And even Katie doesn’t have enough actual entertainment value to bring the CBS news ratings back up. In my opinion, there is only one news anchor left on television who is a journalist first and an entertainer only second: Lou Dobbs. Everybody else, even on the Cable News Network, is playing it for entertainment value first, and journalistic value only second or third. (Or, in the case of Nancy Grace, fourth or fifth.)

So, what should be done? Well, censorship should not be an option. The classic interpretation of the old “fairness doctrine” should also not be an option. What I think should drive the consideration of what we should do are the century-old principles of anti-trust law. No particular type of view ought to be allowed to dominate any significant sized market. If conservative talk radio is all that exists in a market of a 100,000 people or more, then a license lottery ought to determine which station has to give up their license so that a competing point of view can be put onto the airwaves. Also, national organized boycotts of advertising ought to be blatantly illegal under existing anti-trust law, and if they are not, then they need to be made so. The funding of right-wing talk shows and the refusal to fund left-wing talk shows by the management of public corporations is a clear interference in the political process of this country. Allowing viewpoint discrimination in product advertising is the worst sort of meddling in politics.

Do I think these ideas have a chance in the current political climate? No!!! Unfortunately, money talks, and we know who has the money to control Congress. The same people who want lots of illegal immigrants also want right-wing talk radio to be the only brand of talk radio anybody can possibly hear. They are creating a monopoly of the airwaves, and the current administration is just happy to see it since the propaganda war is being waged for their benefit. We will need to wait for a Democrat majority and a Democrat President to even have any hope of reversing any of this mess. But even then, Democrats need money for reelection too, so don’t bet that they will be a lot more willing to take on the right-wing corporations!