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| Top Senate Republican Fears FCC's 'Diversity' Chief May Use 'Back Door' to Regulate Talk Radio |
| 2009-08-19 |
| (CNSNews.com) -- In a letter sent last week to the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Sen. Charles Grassley (R.-Iowa) said he is concerned that the FCC's new "diversity" director, Mark Lloyd, may seek to regulate talk radio through the "back door." Grassley, who expressed his concerns in a letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski on Friday, said he was concerned that the new diversity chief would implement a back-door return of the "Fairness Doctrine," a now-defunct policy which mandated that broadcasters devote equal airtime to both sides of controversial issues. A return to the Fairness Doctrine would spell the end of opinionated talk radio. "Taken together, these statements represent a view that the FCC needs to expand its regulatory arm further into the commercial radio market," Grassley wrote. "I am concerned that despite his statements that the Fairness Doctrine is unnecessary, Mr. Lloyd supports a backdoor method of furthering the goals of the Fairness Doctrine by other means." Grassley said he "strongly disagreed" that government needs to regulate radio any further, saying that greater government involvement would not provide for a greater diversity of views on the airwaves. "Simply put, I strongly disagree with Mr. Lloyd," said Grassley. "I do not believe that more regulation, more taxes or fines, or increased government intervention in the commercial radio market will serve the public interest or further the goals of diversifying the marketplace." Grassley's concerns arise from an paper Lloyd co-authored for the liberal Center for American Progress entitled, "The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio." In this paper, Lloyd and his fellow co-authors laid out what they say are the "structural problems" of the nation's radio regulatory system that they believe explains the success of conservative talk radio. The authors said these problems should remedied by increased government involvement. "Our conclusion is that the gap between conservative and progressive talk radio is the result of multiple structural problems in the U.S. regulatory system," the report said, "particularly the complete breakdown of the public trustee concept of broadcast, the elimination of clear public interest requirements for broadcasting, and the relaxation of ownership rules, including the requirement of local participation in management." |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #7 âThink of the press [media] as a great keyboard on which the government can play.â Joseph Goebbels And so in the end the so-called "diversity chief" title is not about diversity at all but about tyranny and the scrapping of the Bill of Rights. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2009-08-19 21:59 |
| #6 Why cant these idiots just leave us alone? "Barack Obama will require you to work ... Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed." -- Michelle Obama Citizen, you are now now the government's bitch. Now shut your piehole and do as you're told. |
| Posted by: Thor Ebbomble1687 2009-08-19 19:16 |
| #5 Why cant these idiots just leave us alone? You have to give up all your irrational fears of big government, newc. Just sit back and let them take care of you. You'll be fine. Honest. /sarc BTW, government studies have shown that listening to NPR will put you to sleep and Air American would cause you to either change the station or to just turn off the radio. But the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck, Michael Savage, Sean Hannity and Mark Levin will raise your blood pressure. Therefore, under provisions of the new health care reform bill, the Department of Health and Human Services has decreed that these angry and conservative talk radio hosts will be banned from the airwaves. |
| Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 2009-08-19 12:42 |
| #4 I was listening to some liberal talk show where the anchor (or whatever you call them) was talking about how everyone had to give up all their irrational fears over the proposed healthcare system. If that's the best they have to offer, then they're going to continue to get trounced until they outlaw the medium, which will make them right in their minds. |
| Posted by: gorb 2009-08-19 12:09 |
| #3 But the libs did compete in the marketplace of AM radio. Their problem was that they were thoroughly trounced. |
| Posted by: Fred 2009-08-19 10:14 |
| #2 The success of conservative AM talk radio is that there was NO OTHER OUTLET for the majority of Americans to hear views like their own. So, the conservatives took over a long-abandoned, moribund medium, AM radio (are you kidding me? AM radio?!?) and made into something that people would want to listen to. This rightly outrages liberals, who never compete in the marketplace of ideas when they can outlaw competing thought. I mean, does anyone really think that AM radio is out of control? I'm talking about A M freaking RADIO! |
| Posted by: gromky 2009-08-19 09:58 |
| #1 Why cant these idiots just leave us alone? |
| Posted by: newc 2009-08-19 09:24 |