In the months since Mr. Obama became President Obama, I have been pooh-poohing a certain Peoria-area blogger’s (whose site I no longer visit, Billy) constant whining and fear mongering about what he thought was a return of the Fairness Doctrine, all because one or two politicians made off-the-cuff remarks wondering if it needed to be considered in this day and age of slanted media.
Well, guess what, as I said every…single…time this debate was brought up since during the ‘08 campaign, it’s NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.
As a matter of fact, the Senate voted to BAN the idea of even allowing it to be talked about…
And oh, btw, for those who won’t take time to read it, the GOP thought they’d run into Democratic resistance as they put the amendment into another bill about D.C. getting voting representation in the house…but the Dems mostly had no problem with adding the amendment as proposed by Jim DeMint. The final vote on adding the amendment to the bill was 87-11, and the 11 opposed were 10 Democrats and an Independent Sanders from Vermont.
If the Dems wanted to “bring back the Fairness Doctrine”, they would have made that voice known yesterday, as the bill to grant full voting status to D.C. is pretty much a done deal anyway. And guess what, they didn’t.
So…final word: Shut up about the Fairness Doctrine. It’s a non-issue. Still.
6 responses so far ↓
1
ollie
// Feb 27, 2009 at 9:50 am
BJ, I like reading your blog but your format makes it tough to make comments.
Yeah, I’ve given up on reading the Peoria Pundit also; there is just no “there” there.
2
bjstone
// Feb 27, 2009 at 9:59 am
I see it’s a little goofy to type in a comment, Ollie. Didn’t use to be that way. I may indeed change templates, although I really like this one because it’s a bit wild…I don’t like anything to be too conservative, ya know.
3
Jennifer
// Feb 27, 2009 at 3:03 pm
My husband has been touting all that crazy “fairness doctrine” stuff and I knew it wouldn’t come about. I should start writing down all the crazy anti-Obama crap that he says and making him initial it, so that in a couple of years we can see how much of it has actually come true.
4
admin
// Feb 27, 2009 at 3:05 pm
Yeah, I think your theme is having problems since the WordPress 2.7 upgrade. I’ll see if there is a new version out there.
5
admin
// Feb 27, 2009 at 4:00 pm
And if you bothered to read Peoria Pundit, you would have learned about the measure that the Dems passed to begin looking into how to “diversity” media ownership … a backdoor way to get Rush et al off many stations.
6
bjstone
// Feb 27, 2009 at 4:23 pm
Billy, the two issues have NOTHING to do with each other. “Diversity ownership” is not intended to or (even it it WAS the intention) will not accomplish a goal of “getting Rush off the air”.
First of all, Clear Channel has announced long ago that it is busting up it’s own company, and has been selling off chunks of it, probably to raise cash to save their asses in other markets they intend to keep.
Secondly, Obama’s stated goal of “diversity ownership” is intended to get more LOCAL programming on radio stations, something we lost with the Telecommunications Act Clinton was forced into signing in the 90’s.
Now, NOWHERE does “local” equate with “political” changes. As a matter of fact, there would be a good chance that Rush and his right-wing ilk would end up benefitting from such a plan, because MOST of the small mom-and-pop radio companies are run by very pro-GOP individuals. I know. I worked for one such dude not more than two years ago.
Plus, these very Mom and Pop’ers are MORE likely to put syndicated national programming on the air than their counterparts in larger companies, some of which prefer to have their own people on the air as opposed to syndication.
So stop it. There’s no threat of the “Fairness Doctrine” or even a “backdoor conspiracy” of any kind to take hold ever again.
It is, has been, and will remain a non-issue. Period. Double period. Shut the hell up period. Move on, nothing more to see here period.
Leave a Comment