We knew this was coming. We told you it would happen as far back as last year during the campaign.
It is now official. Barack Obama has launched a full, frontal attack on conservative talk radio, and he is doing it without re-implementing 'the Fairness Doctrine.'
But first, a bit of background.
Back in the days when radio was young and there were only a few stations, the Fairness Doctrine insured that listeners received a full array of political opinion in the interest of balance. As the years went by and as radio grew, so did other forms of media. Eventually there was television and then the Internet. And let's not forget that this was the era when newspapers dominated the media.
During Ronald Reagan's Presidency it was determined that 'the Fairness Doctrine' was no longer needed. Thus, the FCC dropped it. Shortly thereafter came conservative talk radio that gave citizens something they had been missing in most newspapers and in ALL of the 3 network news broadcasts--a conservative point of view in the media.
As conservative talk radio grew and began to dominate radio airwaves, the TV networks took a decidedly Leftward turn--much more so than they had already been. For example, anyone who watches MSNBC knows that the network is decidedly liberal in its bias and serves as a cheerleading squad for Barack Obama.
Newspapers, or at least the ones that have managed to stay in business, also turned decidedly Leftward, as we see in the New York Times, which can no longer be considered a reliable source of unbiased news.
This has served to make conservative talk radio even stronger, much to the chagrin of Democrats and liberals who wish to completely dominate ALL of the media. In spite of the fact that their point of view is given preference on CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, Time, Newsweek, the New York Times, Huffington Post, Daily Kos, etc., it grates on their nerves that Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, and Glenn Beck dominate radio.
Thus, the liberal have stated that if they ever retake Congress and the White House a top priority would be to bring back 'the Fairness Doctrine' in order to reign in conservative talk radio and marginalize the voices of Limbaugh and Beck.
However, with this President, bringing back the Fairness Doctrine is totally unnecessary. Obama can accomplish his goals by simply appointing a czar that isn't accountable to anyone but him.
He has done exactly that with the radio issue.
Obama recently appointed to the FCC an officer that we have never had before in America. It is called the 'Chief Diversity Officer,' the goal of which is to make sure that on radio there is a broad diversity of opinion. Nevermind that there is no such diversity in the mainstream media, i.e., TV and newspapers.
The man that Obama appointed to be the 'content czar' for talk radio is Mark Loyd. Loyd wrote a book in 2006, published by the University of Illinois Press, entitled, Prologue to a Farce: Communications and Democracy in America, in which he proposes, among other things, that private radio broadcasters be required to pay a sum equal to their total operating costs in order to benefit public radio broadcasting.
Forget for a moment that no business can survive by paying some other entity a sum equal to their total operating expenses. This, of course, would drive private broadcasters out of business. But look at what he is proposing. He wants public broadcasting to be funded totally on the backs of private broadcasters, many of whom operate in the red.
Such idiotic, mutton-headed notions would be laughable were they not dead serious.
And that's not all.
Loyd stated in a report he authored in 2007 called 'The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio' that 91% of talk radio is conservative and 9% is 'progressive.' Further, he contended that large private broadcast corporations had driven liberals off the air and that there was a dire need for 'diversity of ownership.'
Of course, Loyd conveniently ignores the fact that of the 3 major television broadcast news organizations, 100% are 'progressive' and 0% are conservative. Among the major cable news networks, 75% are progressive while only 25% (Fox News) is conservative. This is the percentage one gets when considering CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, and Fox News.
But let's get back to the primary issue at hand. Loyd's appointment to the FCC is ominous proof that Barack Obama has declared open war on conservative talk radio. It is clear he wants all of radio to be just like ABC News, which set up its operation inside the White House so that Obama could push his government takeover of healthcare. ABC is his lapdog as are the other major networks.
Why would government officials want to launch such an assault on conservative talk radio when they practically have all of the rest of the media in their hip pocket?
The answer is chilling. Only tyrannical governments wish to silence the voices of dissent and totally dominate communications and media.
Make no mistake about this, my friends. This is an open assault on free speech, the First Amendment, and private enterprise.
Source: CNS NEWS
Obama launches frontal attack on conservative talk radio
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