This article is showing that the discussion on reinstituting the so-called "fairness doctrine" is gaining traction in Congress following the recent defeat in the Senate of the immigration bill.
Political powerhouses on both sides of the aisle that were vested in the latest immigration measure are calling for its reimplementation because they want to keep the voice of the people silenced, or at least curtail our organization on issues we disagree with them concerning. It is no secret that talk radio and its listeners were the driving force behind causing at least 14 senators to change stance regarding a vote on cloture and the political honchos now want to punish these outlets by putting them under a bureacrat's pervue.
Personally, I don't want the government involved at all in regulating any of my natural rights, to include my first amendment rights. I don't want some bureacrat somewhere deciding what is a right leaning issue and what is a left leaning one. That is direct control of what the media disseminates and should not be under the auspices of the government in a free country.
Now if we truly wanted real reform when it comes to our public airwaves, the government would break up the huge media powerhouses, such as Clearchannel and others and implement a hard ceiling as to how many media outlets any one person or corporate entity could own. That would guarantee diversity in our media and at the same time would protect the public from media giants, like Rupert Murdoch who control a large portion of our access to information.
For those of you who like the old Jimmy Stewart movie
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, our current media setup is similar to that faced by Jimmy's character when confronting the illegal activities of the protaganist, the media mogul Jim Taylor. The only difference, is today we have the internet which is not as susceptible of censorship. Then again, if you look at the article, many people are calling for that too ... censorship of the internet via the fairness doctrine.
Educate yourself on this subject, and in turn educate others. It is truly an us versus them situation as our elected officials seem intent on taking away our access to information and ability to effectively organize because it is detrimental to their interests.
