Schumer: Fairness Doctrine is 'Fair and Balanced'

Here we go, this is what I feared would happen. You Democrats on ATS said we had to worry about McCain/Palin taking away rights??? How about this - with a Democratic majority in Congress and possibly a new Democratic president, they are looking to re-examine revival of the Fairness Doctrine!

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Tuesday defended the so-called Fairness Doctrine in an interview on Fox News, saying, “I think we should all be fair and balanced, don’t you?”

Schumer’s comments echo other Democrats’ views on reviving the Fairness Doctrine, which would require radio stations to balance conservative hosts with liberal ones.

Asked if he is a supporter of telling radio stations what content they should have, Schumer used the fair and balanced line, claiming that critics of the Fairness Doctrine are being inconsistent.

Source: thehill.com...

The argument against this horrible "doctrine" is that no one is keeping liberals from having their own radio talk shows. In fact, they tried once with "Air America" and it was a dismal failure.

The SCOTUS even upheld canceling this thing:

Just five years later, without ruling the doctrine unconstitutional, the Court concluded in another case that the doctrine "inescapably dampens the vigor and limits the variety of public debate" (Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Tornillo, 418 U.S. 241).

In 1984, the Court concluded that the scarcity rationale underlying the doctrine was flawed and that the doctrine was limiting the breadth of public debate (FCC v. League of Women Voters, 468 U.S. 364). This ruling set the stage for the FCC's action in 1987.

Source: www.heritage.org...

Check that link above - Why the Fairness Doctrine is Anything But Fair

Yes, they've tried it more than once. The clown that helped start "AirAmerica" and helped them with all the crooked financing is now running for the Senate! Al Franken !! I guess they can't let the market drive the propaganda so now they have to force it on us!! Its going to backfire on them! On an interview this morning Shumer tried to couch it in terms of Porno and regulating that, not political opinon!

Zindo

[edit on 11/4/2008 by ZindoDoone]

They dominate near every outlet for information and news and he has the balls to complain about talk radio? These people are outright terrified of dissent. They know Obama is going to do unpopular things and the only chance they have of pulling one over on the American people, is by silencing dissent.

A question -

Would this also apply to TV /cable?

For example, MSNBC required to give more Republican air-time if it went through.

Even in liberal hell New Haven, CT Air America failed.

I guess this is no different than mandates to adopt untested and mythical technologies well before the market or consumers are willing or able to adopt them in the name of 'climate change.'

They'll legislate us into looking like the society they want to engineer.
Harrison Bergeron much? I wont be happy when they put a helmet on my head because I'm too smart or weigh down my shoulders because I'm too tall.

The problem with this, as with most "leveling" legislation is... who decides which balances what?

There are people on ATS who believe that the two parties are just two fists of a giant conspiracy. (By the way, has anyone else noticed how many (NWO) policies the candidates agree on???).


So what about having a libertarian on your network? What balances that???? Or ralph nader?

If I have an anti NWO lecturer on my show, do I have to book someone from the CFR? What if they won't come????

Does this apply to religion? Economics? fishing tips?


Basically, it's the government annexing another utility with its corporation-proxies.

Air America went bankrupt. Rosie ODonnell's "special cruise" ship went belly up.
I think the people have spoken. The fairness doctrine is a joke and should insult anyone with some degree of intelligence liberal or conservative. Let the masses decide. We certainly do not need to have this trash regurgitated and spoon fed down our throats again.

If I wanted to live that way I would move to California.

It is nothing less than an assault on our 1st amendment rights by democrats that want to do away with all "dissenting voices", such as they consider FoxNews and talk radio to be. It is an attempt at censorship, pure and simple.

For a decade we've had to listen to a diatribe about Bush and the Republicans "taking away our rights". What rights are now gone, BTW?

But look at who is actually attempting to take away our constitutional rights - exactly, the democrats.

No right to dissent. No America.

They had better rethink their stance. We keep taking punches to the face...it doesn't matter if it's the LEFT or RIGHT hand of the government.

The sad thing is some people seem to like getting slammed. They take it like a slap from mom or dad....oops i was bad i deserved it. Wake up people you don't deserve this crap!! You deserve better!!!



[edit on 4-11-2008 by David9176]

reply to post by Frogs


I think it applies to all publicly funded airwaves....television and radio.

This is just ridiculous. We can choose what we want to watch on television and what we listen to on the radio. If we don't like the programming, we can change the channel or station to find an alternative. If they try this again, it will fail, and then what? Another bailout??

Come now, the "Liberal media" is a myth. The whole point of it is that money completely dominates our media, and the corporate sector is dominated by the conservative right. Our media is so biased to the right that what most people think is the left is actually the center. Point of fact, the far rights views while not overwhelmingly shown, are at least SEEN from time to time in the news, enough so so that everyone is at least familiar with them. The far left is never shown at all, and most people are completely unfamiliar with them. You never see 9/11 truth debates at all on the news and many people are concerned with this. You never see serious investigation into government corruption. You never see serious criticism of israel or support for palestine in the news. You never see the debate over the fact that georgia attacked ossettia and then russia intervened in the news. You never see the many who SUPPORT chavez in the news, you never see the TRUE translation of ahmadinejad's famous statement on israel, and you never see see his statement that if palestine wants a two party system with israel he would support it. THESE are left issues, and are completely BLACKED OUT in the news.

The point is that our media has lost completely its non bias, and has become a mouthpiece for the corporate and government groups. Many reporters complain about this, and there is little TRUE debate in the media. There are quite a few right wing nut shows, Rush, Hannity, Oreilly, and there is only one opposing show, Olberman, who is painted as the left when hes really centrist.

We currently have NOTHING in effect to protect the integrity of our media. How can that be? This is one step, and a mild one.

They want to tell oil companies how much of a profit is too much.

They want to tell media what the audience should listen to.

They want to further subsidize the poor at the expense of the rich.


They should look in the mirror and questioned themselves about how fair and balance they are being.

Originally posted by pexx421
This is one step, and a mild one.

Yes, toward the kind of government censorship of the media as seen in communist countries. And not such a mild one, since it could/would be used to silence all conservative media voices.

reply to post by centurion1211


Agreed.

It isn't mild at all.

It only takes the government seizing one right to start a snowball effect.

It will happen in increments like these, and one day we will wake up slaves to the government.

There is no such thing as fair and balanced in a land where those with money have more power to manipulate legislation than those without. Money is not just ability to transfer ownership of things in our society, its power, and above a certain amount it becomes disruptive to the democratic system. Our government exists to protect our people from dangers, and massive accumulation of wealth giving a few the power to manipulate the system IS a danger. Those in power have used that power to keep the greater accumulation of wealth to themselves over the last 30 years. While the GDP has doubled, they have manipulated the system to pass laws allowing all the profit from that increased productivity to go to the top 10% rather than being distributed among ALL the people that earned it.

The middle and lower class have few protections against the wealthy elite, and it IS the governments duty to give them those protections.

reply to post by David9176


The thing is one group likes seeing the other group slammed. Patriot Act, oh, slam. Half the people applaud. Fairness Doctrine, slam. The other half applauds. Guns? I dont think so. Half applaud. Free market? Hells no. Half applaud.

Each side stripping liberty from the other for jollies and the only person who wins is tyranny.

there is nothing of censorship here. It says nothing about restricting what shows you can have, it merely states you must also have shows showing alternative opinions. If all our news agencies only espouse one side, then for the american people that one line is all that exists.
Our media has failed in its duty to the people on a massive level. Americans are massively uneducated and massively uninformed, and there are several polls showing this explicitly. During the buildup to the war, several polls were held to show how far off the americans views were from reality. Many polled believed that iraq was involved in the twin towers, that the towers were "bombed", that we FOUND WMD's in iraq, and all this comes from the lack of reasoned news. The news often runs evidence supporting their views based off of bad info, and when the truth is found to conflict with their show later, they rarely run visible and honest retractions, with perhaps a snip at the bottom of the screen being their only offer towards honesty.

reply to post by pexx421


But what does your last post have to do with the topic? Hopefully, it was not a deflection attempt.

This is about an attempt to muzzle conservative media without doing a thing about MSNBC, CNN, LA Times, NY Times, Hollywood,etc., etc., etc.

With Obama in the drivers seat and a Democratic control of both houses, I garruntee this will be a one sided affair. Pexx. There is nothing fair about the fairness doctrine. Its a large step backwards. You might remember that it was the liberals who belly ached about it in the first place. They wanted more 'Freedom of Expression' in the media. Now that they have lost control of it and the airwaves are flooded with people who like what they hear in the conservative movement, they are crying foul. Typical of the Libs, They have to have some control over anything that they feel might disagree with them so they can 'FIX' it!!

Zindo