.....from the Patriot Post US.
"Democrats in the Senate and the House are preparing a full-frontal assault on the First Amendment rights of conservative groups in parallel legislative moves. The Senate ethics bill, passed Thursday night, contains a provision that will hold grassroots groups that attempt to “influence the general public” to the same rules as Washington lobbyists. This means that basically any group that suggests you write your congressman about an issue, from the humble editorial shop of The Patriot to the pastor of your local church, needs to file financial reports or face a $200,000 fine. In addition, any such group aside from liberal-loving unions that spends or collects more than $25,000 in three months would also be required to file.
The debate will continue, though, while House Democrats move to reinstall the 'Fairness Doctrine' in an effort to silence conservative talk radio. The doctrine, which was allowed to die a quiet death during the Reagan administration, for years forced television and radio stations to give equal time to conservative and liberal opinion. Though it was never actually made law, now Democrats want to enforce the Fairness Doctrine in the proposed Media Ownership Reform Act. Under the guise of giving people a choice in the political views that they absorb in the media, Democrats are actually looking to force conservative talk radio stations to cede time to lousy liberal programming like Air America (which recently declared bankruptcy for lack of listeners). So much for the marketplace of ideas. The only programming choice liberals want to give the public is left and further left."
"grassroots groups"
ReplyDeleteThat'd be progressive and liberal groups as much as conservative groups, right? How does that attack conservatives OR the first amendment?
Do you know what the "Fairness Doctrine" was/will be under the premises the Democrat Congress wants to impose?
ReplyDeleteThey know that their ideas are not competitive in the open media market; therefore, Talk Radio (a mostly conservative institution) will be restricted.
On the other hand, it probably will also mean the end of radio shows like "Brad and Britt".
Under the provision, B&B would be forced to give equal time to anyone who disagrees with any political opinion expressed on the show.
This is just the next step back to the Dark Ages that started with the fatally flawed McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance reform measure enacted a number of years ago.
Do you not see how these things violate First Amendment rights regardless of the nature of the political content?
It could even be construed to cover ANY controversy, not just those of a political nature.
Here's some more background.
Excerpt:
"And in fact, the fairness doctrine was used by both the Kennedy and Nixon Administrations to limit political opposition. Telecommunications scholar Thomas W. Hazlett notes that under the Nixon Administration, "License harassment of stations considered unfriendly to the Administration became a regular item on the agenda at White House policy meetings." (Thomas W. Hazlett, 'The Fairness Doctrine and the First Amendment,' The Public Interest, Summer 1989, p. 105.) As one former Kennedy Administration official, Bill Ruder, has said, 'We had a massive strategy to use the fairness doctrine to challenge and harass the right-wing broadcasters, and hope the challenge would be so costly to them that they would be inhibited and decide it was too expensive to continue.' (Tony Snow, "Return of the Fairness Demon," The Washington Times, September 5, 1993, p. B3.)
Here's more.
Excerpt:
"Last year, two Seattle radio hosts, Kirby Wilbur and John Carlson spoke out on their shows against a hike of 9.5 cents a gallon in the state's gas tax, noting that price increases of gas at the pump were already imposing a burden on consumers. They urged their listeners to support a ballot initiative repealing the onerous tax.
The big money was on the side of the proponents of the gas tax—Microsoft chairman Bill Gates and his CEO Steve Ballmer; the Boeing aircraft manufacturer; the Washington State Labor Council; and the Seattle Mariners. AP reported these powerful interests kicked in to a fund of over $2 million to keep the gas tax hike on the books. By contrast, advocates of repealing the tax chalked up a mere $225,000, mostly in small donations.
As the Wilber/Carlson advocacy began to catch on with the public, a consortium of tax-hungry local governments throughout the state went to court and persuaded a judge to rule that the talk-show hosts' commentaries should be counted as "in-kind" contributions to the No New Gas Tax (NNGT) campaign. The court decided that the hosts and their station KVI-AM offered free political advertising to the gas-tax opponents.
Part of the rationale for the ruling—now on appeal to the state Supreme court—was that the hosts' employer—Fisher Communications— "sent" NNGT a contribution merely by allowing Wilbur and Carlson to comment in favor of the repeal initiative (which subsequently failed by a narrow margin, thanks in no small part to the overwhelming power of the moneyed campaign by the pro-taxers). It did not matter that the KVI talkers had proponents of the tax hike appear on their program as guests, or that Fisher's media properties included commentaries in favor of sticking Washington State consumers for more money at the pump."
It will swing both ways.It will not stop at broadcast media....trust me.
I got a glimpse of communications law and regulation many years ago from one of the experts. The first Mrs. Bubba worked for this gentleman at the Rand Institute back in the early 70s.
He was the person responsible for the removal of tobacco ads from the broadcast media, and he was quite aware of the potential impact the Fairness Doctrine had.
The implications are onerous.