Fairness According to Dennis...
...is and "uninhibited exchange of ideas," which in Dennis-speak, means advocates for positions he supports should be on-the-air side-by-side with more mainstream ideas. In all of Dennis's comments on the Fairness Doctrine he wishes to implement, the term "free market" doesn't come up much. Nor does the high-profile failure of left-wing radio network Air America -- which didn't fail because they were locked out of markets or due to some sort of political persecution, but simply because not enough people wanted to listen to it. Air America had free and open access to the airwaves... but to Dennis the fact that people just didn't want to listen to it means some unfair is happening.
Kucinich's strongest complaint is that massive consolidation in the radio broadcast industry has meant fewer companies producing most of the content. That is true to an extent in talk radio (although anyone who's ever scanned the AM dial on a long drive knows there is still a huge variety of programming out there) and the right-wing talk audience is larger. But this is most definitely NOT true almost everywhere else -- the internet has EXPLODED with news, information and opinion. The internet is threatening newspapers, tv, and radio everywhere you look. Getting a contrary opinion out to the public is now as easy as setting up a Blogger account. It is mankind's greatest example of an "uninhibited exchange of ideas" -- and Kucinich acts like it doesn't exist. Kucinich's subcomittee would only apply to talk radio, perhaps the one medium where right-wing viewpoints are more predominant. So despite a whole new world of free information exchange, the popularity of right-wing talk shows on good old AM radio is the big bad boogeyman that Kucinich most worries about.
Kucinich even has the gall to ask, "How could we have the trade policies which we have, for example, if there was a free and uninhibited exchange of ideas over NAFTA and GATT and the WTO?" You see, this is what it is all about. Kucinich refuses to believe that most people have heard the relavent facts about NAFTA. Does he not remember the great NAFTA debate in the 1990's? It was years in the making and there were plenty of contrary points of view floating about. It didn't passs because not enough people were opposed to it on AM talk radio; it passed because both parties and President Clinton supported it. And the NAFTA debate occurred in an American that largely predates the great consolidation of radio broadcasters and the popularity of right-wing talk radio.
Kucinich's strongest complaint is that massive consolidation in the radio broadcast industry has meant fewer companies producing most of the content. That is true to an extent in talk radio (although anyone who's ever scanned the AM dial on a long drive knows there is still a huge variety of programming out there) and the right-wing talk audience is larger. But this is most definitely NOT true almost everywhere else -- the internet has EXPLODED with news, information and opinion. The internet is threatening newspapers, tv, and radio everywhere you look. Getting a contrary opinion out to the public is now as easy as setting up a Blogger account. It is mankind's greatest example of an "uninhibited exchange of ideas" -- and Kucinich acts like it doesn't exist. Kucinich's subcomittee would only apply to talk radio, perhaps the one medium where right-wing viewpoints are more predominant. So despite a whole new world of free information exchange, the popularity of right-wing talk shows on good old AM radio is the big bad boogeyman that Kucinich most worries about.
Kucinich even has the gall to ask, "How could we have the trade policies which we have, for example, if there was a free and uninhibited exchange of ideas over NAFTA and GATT and the WTO?" You see, this is what it is all about. Kucinich refuses to believe that most people have heard the relavent facts about NAFTA. Does he not remember the great NAFTA debate in the 1990's? It was years in the making and there were plenty of contrary points of view floating about. It didn't passs because not enough people were opposed to it on AM talk radio; it passed because both parties and President Clinton supported it. And the NAFTA debate occurred in an American that largely predates the great consolidation of radio broadcasters and the popularity of right-wing talk radio.
posted by Michael at 9:59 AM
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