Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Blackout of Left’s “Fairness” Doctrine Push



...But there has been news to report, as Democrats have been more than candid about their plans. On Election Day, for example, New York Senator Charles Schumer justified regulating political speech. “The very same people who don’t want the Fairness Doctrine want the FCC to limit pornography on the air,” Schumer told the Fox News Channel. “You can’t say, ‘government hands off in one area’ to a commercial enterprise, but you’re allowed to intervene in another. That’s not consistent.”
In late October, Democratic Senator Jeff Bingaman told a New Mexico radio station how he “hopes” the Fairness Doctrine returns so radio will be more to his liking: “For many, many years, we operated under a Fairness Doctrine in this country. I think the country was well-served. I think the public discussion was at a higher level and more intelligent in those days than it has become since.”
Democrats have launched various attempts to control of broadcast content since the Fairness Doctrine’s demise in 1987, but the push has become more insistent in the past couple of years. After the failure of a liberal immigration bill in 2007, Senator Dianne Feinstein told Fox News Sunday that she was “looking at” a new Fairness Doctrine because “talk radio tends to be one-sided....It's explosive. It pushes people to, I think, extreme views without a lot of information.” As with Schumer and Bingaman recently, none of the broadcast networks thought Feinstein’s threats worth reporting....(
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