:
: The fairness doctrine is interference. It was used as a political club.
: Richard Nixon and the Republican party were using the so-called fairness
: doctrine to go after the licenses of radio and TV properties of networks
and
: newspapers they didn't like. But Nixon didn't invent the tactic. It was
: first used in the Kennedy administration. Given today's political
: climate,I'm sure both parties would enthusiastically hammer the media
: companies whenever embarrassing stories got out.
:
: Is that really what you want?
:
: There's a mistaken belief that dropping the fairness doctrine made right
: wing political talk radio possible. That's not true. In Chicago, Howard
: Miller had a greatly entertaining political talk show back in the early
: seventies. Miller was to the right of Limbaugh, Hannity and Atilla the
Hun.
:
: Let's also consider who else gets treated shabbily by the fairness
doctrine.
: Who should determine what the audience should hear -- the government or
the
: audience?

1. The Fairness Doctrine could be resurrected and rewritten to assure a
balance of voices/opinions are heard on the public airwaves.
2. The audience has absolutely no input over what is heard on the airwaves
(with very limited exceptions). If you try to argue that broadcasters are
responding to market demands then the I.Q. factor in this country has
indeed fallen to the low double or even single digit range.
3. No, what I would really like to see is an ownership cap of seven to a
dozen stations per entity with no cross ownership. Then there might
actually be some creative programming and diversity - you know, like there
was for the first 75 years or so.... Imagine! stations with different
studios, different personnel, maybe even different program directors! Then
they wouldn't sell for over inflated amounts and we wouldn't get stripped
down, dumbed down voice-tracked generic dog-vomit programming!
4. Radio listenership is down by 15-20%. There's a reason for that