BaldGOP

A Blog for Bald Republicans, and anyone else!

Saturday, May 19, 2007

Fairness Doctrine? Nah, I'll Take Free Speech

Fred is the man.....
I had planned on talking a bit today about Venezuela. The president there doesn't like the way his media is covering him, so he's doing away with the free press. He's established rules on what he thinks is fair, and he’s denying licenses to television and radio stations that don't play by government rules.

I can't criticize him now, though. After all, how would it seem for me to complain about another country, when our own congressional leadership is trying to put the same sort of rules in place here? To do so, they're pulling the Fairness Doctrine out of the dustbin of history.
The Fairness Doctrine is an artifact from the days when there were only a handful of television channels and radio stations on our dials. Then, there might have been something to the fear that somebody might get control of all the media outlets in an area -- so equal time rules were put in place.

As television and radio stations increased, it became clear that the rule was a bust. Instead of protecting free speech, it imposed costs on broadcasters that killed political discussion entirely. Why run the risk of dealing with anything controversial and having the regulators and the lawyers come down on you? Instead of talking about issues, news directors used stopwatches to measure candidates' airtime.

Finally, in 1987, the Federal Communications Commission ended the antiquated policy. Today, with more cable and local access channels than anybody can keep track of -- the equal time rule makes even less sense. Throw in the Internet, and it's absurd.

The real issue here is not what you "can" see or hear -- which is what the Fairness Doctrine was about originally. It's what you're "choosing" to see or hear.

Insiders say it was the collapse of the radio show "Air America" that led to this attempt to retool the Fairness Doctrine as a form of de facto censorship. I guess the idea is that, if you can't compete in the world of ideas, you pass a law that forces radio stations to air your views. In effect, it would force a lot of radio stations to drop some talk show hosts -- because they would lose money providing equal airtime to people who can’t attract a market or advertisers.

The funny thing is that the success of the current crop of radio talk show hosts is due, in part, to a lot of people’s perception that broadcast television doesn’t give the views of their audience a fair shake. Maybe I shouldn't admit it, since I dabble in radio myself, but this media used to be viewed as a kind of broadcast ghetto. The bi-coastal elite had such a grip on the major newspapers and television networks; they pretty much ignored the hinterlands. It was media flyover country.

Now congressional leaders say they want to “level the playing field” there too – meaning they want to diminish the importance of conservative talk radio. In other words, they don’t trust the results of freedom and the marketplace. Why am I not surprised?

Sunday, May 06, 2007

David Broder

Veteran political columnist David Broder set off a firestorm recently when he called Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid an ``embarrassment'' for declaring the Iraq War ``lost.''
From the assault subsequently directed at Broder -- from other journalists, political operatives, left-wing bloggers and even the entire 50-member Senate Democratic Caucus -- you'd have thought Broder had had an intimate encounter with an intern. Or, in the spirit of bipartisanship, had broken into Democratic National Committee headquarters.

Broder committed no such dastardly deed, but merely did what he has done for the past 35 years. He called it as he saw it -- just as Reid claims to have done, and that his defenders seem to find so refreshing.

Nevertheless, the 50 Democratic senators felt compelled to respond. Doesn't the U.S. Senate have more important matters to attend to than David Broder?

In a letter to The Washington Post that had the unmistakable whiff of a powder room manifesto, otherwise known as a hissy fit -- as opposed to a ``bed-wetting tantrum,'' as Paul Begala described Broder's column -- the senators asserted that their leader is a ``good listener,'' who has an ``amazing ability to synthesize views and bring people together,'' and who also demonstrates a ``mastery of procedure.''

It is perhaps admirable, and certainly reassuring to Reid, that his fellow senators came to his defense. But this kind of overreaction to a columnist is rare, if not unprecedented, and betrays a disturbing hostility to legitimate criticism.

Though Broder is a great political writer, he is not the president of the United States. He doesn't command an army or meet routinely with heads of state to negotiate planetary alignment or even global heating and cooling. He's a commentator.

And what, exactly, is a commentator supposed to do if not comment? When he or she makes a point -- from the perspective of an observer with more than 50 years' experience in Broder's case -- does disagreement necessitate a movement?

Outrage has become such a predictable response to any difference of opinion that it's lost its heat. When everything is outrageous, nothing is. In fact, what Broder said was not remotely outrageous. It's hardly crazy to think it inappropriate when the leader of the most powerful governing body in the world declares in the midst of a war that the war is lost.

Broder's point, provocative but hardly incendiary, was that American lives are on the line and that Reid's remark didn't help matters. Rather than provide encouragement to our enemies, Broder suggested that the Senate leader might do better to heed the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group report and seek common ground toward both military and political solutions.
Broder needs no one to defend him. His record, which includes at least equal numbers of columns criticizing Republicans as Democrats, speaks for itself. But the Reid-Broder dust-up reveals the degraded state of public debate today. People don't disagree; they brawl. Punditry has become a free-for-all -- and mutual respect is locked in the attic with Aunt Sadie.
Part of this devolution in discourse has been brought about, no doubt, by the volcanic explosion of the blogosphere, which has democratized free speech in a way that is not always positive or pretty. Everybody can type, but not everyone can write. Everyone has an opinion, but not everyone comes equipped with the same skills and experience.


The disinhibiting effect of anonymity, meanwhile, has unleashed something dark in the human spirit that seems to have infected the broader culture. It isn't enough to say that Broder is all wet; instead he's ``foaming at the mouth,'' a ``gasbag" and a ``venomous'' bloviator,'' borrowing again from Begala.

Begala, who came to punditry via the Clinton White House, isn't anonymous, of course. But many other lesser-knowns have taken Broder to task in what has become the typical blog-inspired pile-on.

One wonders where these same thin-skins were when Broder was leveling his sights at the Bush administration. Was Broder a gasbag when previously he lambasted the Bush budget deficit, the tax cuts for the rich and the mess in Iraq?

A fair treatment of Broder's recent column would consider the broader context of his body of work, but fairness is missing from this debate. Also is respect for those, like the Pulitzer Prize-winning Broder, who have toiled long in the fields to earn the kind of forum others merely feel entitled to.

The absence of fairness and respectful dissension -- and the decline of civility wrought by our nation's unhinged narcissism -- now there's something worthy of outrage.