Progress!!
...toward fascism
The HildaBeast and “Babs I am buttah” Boxer got caught. [Audio]
[UPDATE: three years ago *eye roll*]
O’course now they are playing the Bart Simpson Deny Everything game. Apparently Inhofe broke the first Rule of Congress: even more so than Vegas, what is said here stays here.
Add in: [the “Silly Man"] Trent “Vacant” Lott’s hand-tipping statement that talk radio [read: market-driven free speech] is something “we” must “deal with.” oopsie
Now comes the big “gun”—the report from the Center for American Progress [aka: the Clinton White Hose in Exile] run by that interesting character, John Posesta.
The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio
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, 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.Ownership diversity is perhaps the single most important variable contributing to the structural imbalance based on the data. [which is deeply, deeply flawed]
This analysis suggests that any effort to encourage more responsive and balanced radio programming will first require steps to increase localism and diversify radio station ownership to better meet local and community needs. [here’s the threat part: we’ll nationalize/legislate your radio holdings right out of your hands if you don’t program the stuff we tell you to—whether or not you can get ratings or advertisers for it. ]
We suggest three ways to accomplish this:
--Restore local and national caps on the ownership of commercial radio stations.
--Ensure greater local accountability over radio licensing.
--Require commercial owners who fail to abide by enforceable public interest obligations to pay a fee to support public broadcasting. [they already do—it’s called “taxes"]
...
Quantitative analysis ... of commercial radio stations reveals that stations owned by women, minorities, or local
owners are statistically less likely to air conservative hosts or shows. [emph. in original]
Among other things—manymanymanymanymany other things—the “data” failed to include ratings from federally-funded NPR—failed to even acknowledge it’s existence.
Talkers Magazine Heavy Hundred
Paul for the amazing PS
[at least I think it’s a PS...]
Just looking at KFI-AM Los Angeles is quite revealing. CAP counts that as providing 13 hours of conservative talk and ZERO progressive talk. Yet Bill Handel has a daily four-hour show, the #1 morning drive show in LA for nearly a decade, in which he reams the Bush Administration on everything from euthanasia, stem cells, Iraq and firing attorneys. He’s got more air time than Rush Limbaugh but he counts for nothing, because he’s the sort of “local” radio they’re demanding. Makes me wonder who else is totally missing from their survey.
Posted by on 06/23/07 at 11:27 PM
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