Posted by
Edward L. Daley on Friday, January 19, 2007 2:04:49 PM
Less than half a month has passed since the Democrats took control of
Congress, and already they are proving to everyone just how far to the
left their party has slid over the years. In typical neo-communist
fashion, Representative Maurice Hinchey of New York [1]
has decided to
drag the long-buried - but apparently not quite dead - Fairness
Doctrine [2] out of its tomb, dust it off,
rename it the Media
Ownership Reform Act (MORA) [3], and attempt
to replace free speech in
the media with what he and his ilk like to refer to as "fair speech".
Of course, neither Mr. Hinchey nor his bill's 16 liberal co-sponsors
can explain why they believe free speech is so unfair to begin with
that they feel compelled to replace it with something else. And it
should come as no surprise to anyone that clearly delineating the
criteria by which someone in the media may be deemed "fair" is also
something they're unwilling to do, since determining the difference
between what's fair and what's unfair is purely subjective in nature.
For instance, is it fair that members of Congress get huge salaries for
doing next to nothing, while the vast majority of their constituents
have to work much harder for far less money? Many people would say no,
but I'm betting Maurice Hinchey and his cronies on Capitol Hill don't
feel that way.
In my opinion, forcing the children of poor people into a public school
system which condemns most of them to a life of quiet desperation and,
at best, mediocre employment prospects is unfair in the extreme, but
you won't see the new Fairness Police in Washington D.C. offering any
of America's
underprivileged kids the opportunity to attend private schools anytime
soon.
Mr. Hinchey states that MORA "seeks to restore integrity and diversity
to America's media system by
lowering the number of media outlets that one company is permitted to
own in a single market," but he fails to point out that no company is
going to be successful enough to buy very many media outlets in any
market unless it gives its audience what it wants. Fed up with the
left-wing bias that has permeated the television news industry for
decades, today's media
consumers demand both diversity and integrity from the people who
provide them with news and information. That's why talk radio programs
are so popular these days.
Shows like Rush Limbaugh's afford their listeners with a wide variety
of viewpoints, and their hosts routinely cite articles from the most
reputable news sources around.
While it's no secret that Mr. Limbaugh is a staunch right-winger, half
of the news stories he reads over the airwaves come straight from the
New York Times, the Washington Post, and many other left-leaning
publications, and just as many liberals call into his program as
conservatives. If they didn't, his ratings would plummet! Nobody wants
to listen to three hours of people agreeing with each other about
everything. Folks tune into Rush to hear him argue with liberals - and
sometimes other conservatives - not to listen to a bunch of saps tell
him how wonderful they think he is.
Comrade Hinchey also relates that his bill "reinstates the Fairness
Doctrine" in order to "protect fairness and accuracy in journalism,"
yet there is at least as much accuracy in news reporting today as there
was before 1987 when the original Fairness Doctrine was done away with.
Does anyone really believe that the now infamous Bush National Guard
document story of 2004 would have been exposed for the fraud it was if
the
media of today resembled the media of the 1970s?
And need I remind anyone that the main reason why the FCC discarded its
rules concerning (supposed)
fairness was because they actually discouraged debate on the more
controversial issues of the day? Broadcasters didn't want to risk being
punished by the federal government for not being "fair enough" when it
came to exhibiting ideological balance in their programming, so they
simply avoided many hot-button issues altogether.
Between cable television, newspapers, talk radio, and the Internet, we
have more access to information than at any time in our history, and
although much of it is inaccurate, most of it is not. While it is
difficult to know for sure, I suspect that the modern media brings us
more truth than the Jurassic media ever did, because today's technology
provides tens of millions of Americans with the means to do something
that Dan Rather apparently never learned how to do... fact-check.
Gone are the days when average citizens had no choice but to accept
what was spoon-fed to them by the media elite. In case Mr.
Hinchey hadn't noticed, this is the year 2007, and folks like you and I
have
access to more information today than the entire CBS television network
had only a few decades ago.
Isn't that "fair" enough for you, Congressman, or do you think
I need
Al Gore to come to my home personally and preach to me about the
dangers of human-caused global warming until my freakin' ears bleed?
1 - http://www.house.gov/hinchey/issues
2 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine
3 - http://www.house.gov/hinchey/issues/mora.shtml
By Edward L. Daley
Owner of the Daley Times-Post
http://www.times-post.com