Don Feder, conservative political communications consultant and former Boston Herald writer, makes Shock Jocks the centerpiece of a column which also ran at freerepublic.com, entitled “Obama And The Conspiracy To Kill Talk Radio.”
The piece isn’t quite a book review; as Feder writes, “[a]ccording to its cover, this penetrating analysis” is a “just the latest manifestation of the left’s obsession with talk radio,” and serves adequately as a jumping off point to rally Republican voters with threats of the damage liberals will do to America if elected.
Feder doesn’t waste any time connecting the dots between liberals and terrorists:
In 1987, the Reagan FCC repealed the grotesque anachronism. Now, the left is panting to bring it back.
This is how the Fairness Doctrine would be applied to talk radio: If a station broadcast three hours of Rush Limbaugh — or Sean Hannity or Bill O’Reilly or Dr. Dobson — in the afternoon, it would have to provide equal time to The Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright, Father Michael Pfleger or Osama bin Laden.
It’s literally Feder’s job to know a good rallying cry when he hears one, so it’s no wonder he has glommed onto the narrative of pinkos trying to “Hush Rush” with the Fairness Doctrine.
Sticking to the conservative talk radio talking points, Feder accuses Obama of being part of a grand conspiracy which includes Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senator Dick Durbin. Much of Feder’s piece revolves around the reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine, even though he admits Obama’s campaign has stated the Senator is opposed to reviving it. But Feder doesn’t give an inch:
If so, it’s because he has something more ominous in mind.
…Obama’s position is almost identical to that of the Center for American Progress, whose spokesman argues that the FCC should impose on radio stations “ownership rules … (which) will create greater local diversity of programming, news, and commentary. And we call for more localism by putting teeth into the licensing rules. But we do not call for a return to the Fairness Doctrine.
Feder accuses Obama (and the media reform movement in general) of soft-peddling censorship, saying that liberals are “anti-market” and “incapable of debate,” while “[c]onservatives are eager to engage in a dialogue.”
All through Feder’s rant (whose content ought to be familiar to any talk radio listener), he misses two crucial points about talk radio and media reform; radio waves are owned by the public (as opposed to satellite radio or print and Internet media), and that ownership rules are meant to increase free speech, not attack it. When media reformers talk about greater diversity, they are referring to the fact that the American radio market is an oligopoly, with the major networks not only in control of a disproportionate amount of the actual radio stations, but control over the content being syndicated.
Since it is the government who hands out the licenses to use the airwaves, it has a responsibility to award these monopolies over the use of publicly-owned resources with some sense of fairness. With the deregulation of radio ownership, the FCC has allowed a few major corporations to dominate the market–corporations who have invested heavily in conservative talkers. The First Amendment is more about the breadth of free speech than its depth; freedom of the press is about access to the public, not preserving the ability to drown out others.
The Founding Fathers would surely recognize the difference between, say, guaranteeing Thomas Paine the right to publish a copy of Common Sense, and the granting of monopolies to fewer and fewer big publishers to use the postal system.
Still, Feder can’t resist turning Demoocrats into Communists bent on authoritarian speech controls, saying that media reforms like shorter license renewal times and more local ownership are part of a grand plot to nationalize the media, and we all know what that’s about:
You’re more likely to find diverse viewpoints in Beijing’s People’s Daily than you are on the average NPR or PBS station.
Clearly Feder hasn’t seen the McLaughlin Group. In fact, he doesn’t seem to know his constituency very well either; while he complains that
Essentially, the left’s position on any issue is: Either you believe this, or you’re Hitler, a drooling idiot or both.
it only took five comments to this piece on Free Republic before a commenter declared that “Selective fascism is a prerequisite of successful Progressivism,” and nine before a commenter declares,
“Fairness” to the left is their viewpoint and censorship of conservative opposition. To them, the op-ed pages of the NY Slimes, the constant spin of Couric, Williams and other Goebbels mouth-pieces, are all “fair.”
“Time to arm-up…” writes the very next commenter.
