has right wing radio gone to far?

[Torie]

The topic was talk radio. As to the MSM, it varies a lot in quality, although the trend is down, down, down there too. WAPO is pretty good, the LA Times is just a rag, and the NY Times is all left agitprop all the time. The WSJ's quality has gone down too, on its editorial page. It's thinkums on the meltdown have been quite superficial. They don't understand any more than we do.

Praeger does not have a very catholic (small c) mind. He's in a rut. He just can't quite break out of his hard wired paradigms, and he has become much more partisan, ala Michael Barone, which reduces the quality of his product. Having a certain emotional detachment really helps when it comes to being susceptible to those little  factlets that help to make for a more penetrating analysis.

The fairness doctrine sucks by the way, as does doing away with elections for unionization. But nobody is suggesting that election Obama, even in centrist garb, is a risk free proposition I would suspect, except his true blue fans.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

What gets ratings I guess is inimical to quality.

The secret of Murdoch's success as well.

[opebo]

The thing is that radio stations don't want to have liberals on the show, because they don't generate much viewership.  Why do we want to force the stations to put liberals on the show?  Why don't we do the same for the LA Times or NY Times?

Because the airwaves are not owned by the plutocrats, Ronnie - they are owned socialistically, in common, by all the americans.

[JSojourner]

The thing is that radio stations don't want to have liberals on the show, because they don't generate much viewership.  Why do we want to force the stations to put liberals on the show?  Why don't we do the same for the LA Times or NY Times?

Because the airwaves are not owned by the plutocrats, Ronnie - they are owned socialistically, in common, by all the americans.

[??????????]

The quality of right wing talk radio is really very poor. Even Medved has tanked in quality. What gets ratings I guess is inimical to quality. Or maybe the talk show hosts really do lack peripheral vision or something. Hugh Hewitt in particular  is such a pathetic partisan agitprop hack. Does anyone disagree?

Mark Levin is the best thing on the radio.

[cannonia]

The fairness doctrine would put an end to any sort of political opinion show on the radio.

Any time a position, party, or candidate was endorsed on the air, anyone would be able to ask for equal time to argue the other side.  Aside from the bureaucracy that would be involved in arranging to put them on the air, the sheer amount of air time being given over to amateurs would risk ruining the shows.  Station owners would no longer see value in talk radio shows, and the shows would be axed.

Of course, that is what Pelosi et al. want.

[agcatter]

The "fairness" doctrine would have the government decide and then regulate what is "balanced".  That won't fly and it is dangerous.  Far too slippery a slope and Americans know it.  The government of Hugo Chavez decides what is "fair" on the public airwaves and what it believes to be "balanced".  The government has no right to be the determiner of what is and is not balanced.  They would be the arbitrator and the government passing judgement on what is said and by what side is dangerous.  We aren't going there and if Obama and the Democratic congress make any effort to go in that direction they are making a huge political miscalculation - it would be a firestorm and you are making a mistake if you believe the storm would come only from the right.

It ain't gonna happen because it is a political loser.  End of story.  That said, Pelosi and company would love to pass it.  Unfortunately for her and the Al Frankens of the world, there are limits to political power in a democracy  It's called public opinion.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

You can have restrictions on political coverage in the broadcast media without things turning all totalitarian. If anything the power of money in the media is much more disturbing.

A general comment and nowt more; I don't know much about this fairness doctrine.

[agcatter]

I see eye to eye with the good folks at Daily Kos in that we probably both want Democrats to try and pass the "fairness doctrine",.  Of course, itis for different reasons.