We don’t need a fairness doctrine — just a cattle prod
ByMarch 28, 2009
A lot of folks have been saying we should reinstate the Fairness Doctrine, hoping to return some balance to the debate in talk radio.
Count me as someone who thinks a far different change could do a lot more good.
I don’t care who’s talking on the radio, whether his name is Limbaugh, Hannity, Savage, Liddy, Ingraham or any of the other folks the right wing can trot out — as long as they were required to tell the truth.
Take Rush, for example. Please. For years he has equated three words — liberalism, socialism and communism — that are very different. Yet no one ever calls him on it, because he controls the microphone.
Or Sean Hannity. This week he had Rep. Michelle Bachmann (L-Minn) on his show. She’s technically a Republican, but the “L” stands for lunatic. She told him we have to have an “orderly revolution” to prevent President Obama and the Democrats from turning us into a “Marxist” country.
Now even if you concede — which I don’t — that what Obama wants is what Europeans call “Social Democracy,” that’s a long way from Marxism. But Hannity agreed with her, called her a great American and encouraged her in her efforts.
No problem, but here’s where my proposal would come into play.
Anyone wanting to talk on the radio or on television would be hooked up to electrodes. As long as they were telling the truth, or even stretching it a little, no problem. Free speech, y’know.
But when someone comes out with a bald-faced lie, they get an electrical charge. Maybe a small one at first, but with each additional lie, the voltage would double. I don’t know about you, but I’d pay good money to see Rush flopping around and eventually messing his pants because he couldn’t stick to the truth.
I know, I know. There are problems, not least of which the question of who controls the electricity. These things can be worked out. But wouldn’t it be great if the idiots who now say “they couldn’t say it if it wasn’t true” could have proof?
Is this a great country or what?
13 Responses to We don’t need a fairness doctrine — just a cattle prod
bryan mcclellan
March 28, 2009 at 10:47 am
Wow Mike , what images you have conjured.
Your solution reminds me of a friend of mine who had an old dog that he could not break from watering his custom wheels on his hot rod. This guy is a bit of a mad scientist and is never far from the cutting edge of invention but this problem was near insurmountable as he loved this old dog and feared harming him.
After seemingly endless vigils of dog watching in which he always missed the act or happened upon it in progress, he hit upon a risky but as he put it a necessary plan of battle. Yellow stained Cragers had to be off the menu.
So, he goes out to the pasture and retrieves the electric fence charger (12/24 volt) off the post and proceeds to hook it (on low) to the front and rear bumpers of his pride and joy.
Well the old dog was not stupid and sensing something was in the wind would not come near the car no matter the treats offered. Being descendant of native Americans who by the way have a very patient nature, my friend vowed to wait it out and went back to tinkering in the garage. Days passed and as this went on for some time sure enough if he forgot to hook the fence charger up to the car the old dog would do his business as usual.
Finally the solution appeared out of the blue, the old hound being arthritic was once in a while given a little beer to help ease his condition. My friend ever mindful of the SPCA decided that a whole beer instead of the usual half of one just might work.
Sure enough, fifteen minutes after bellying up to the bar here comes old shithead (that was his name) and lets fly with a stream the envy of all middle age men. The fence charger cycled and you would have thought every dog for miles around was howling.
My God we thought we had killed him or at least effectively neutered the old guy, but sure enough after furiously licking himself for about five minutes here he comes again. Well this time was the finale, Shithead sensing that the first drop was going to bring the ultimate surprise hunched around in such a posture as I have ever witnessed a male dog about to do his business. The charger cycled, the dog howled and from then on wheels in that part of the neighborhood remained dry and color free…
P.S. Shithead lived to a ripe old age, as my friend swears, and I agree, that his arthritic condition improved after the shocking developments.Don’t try this at home kids.
Yours is a nominal idea Mike but I fear there would be no place to park near the Capitol because the curbs and gutters would be full of writhing politicians.
almandine
March 28, 2009 at 1:11 pm
You think that approach would work for politicians, too?
Collectivism is slavery…
wayne333
April 1, 2009 at 12:27 am
Ok, So let me get this straight. You have no difficulty at all with a news organization such as FOX News offering lies as if they were truth? You have no problem with a news organization with the slogan “Fair and Balanced” producing a so called News Broadcast in which falsehoods are offered as if they are a truthful representation of events? You have no issue with willfully misleading the American people with intentionally constructed bad information?
At the same time you have a problem with a requirement that both sides of an issue be presented during a broadcast?
Then you are comfortable with propaganda being offered as if it were objective reporting of the news?
Have we forgotten that journalism is supposed to be writing characterized by a direct presentation of facts or description of events without an attempt at interpretation and without opinion. We have lost so much in our public discourse because of the so called Republican Noise Machine.
So from your point of view then traditional journalism is censorship, plain and simple?
Tell me it isn’t so.
W
almandine
April 1, 2009 at 12:36 pm
Well Wayne, see Woody below. What passes (poses) as truth anymore is at best filtered… biased propaganda from someone’s perspective. All points of view are represented, if you take it in the aggregate. Besides, who could rightfully call our modern news medium (in all its forms) journalism? Newspapers are mostly ad sheets and opinion pages, TV is almost nothing but entertainment, what you see is what you get – online… Whom do I believe? Certainly NOT government-mandated “fairness”.
Noise machine??? TRULY a non-partisan effort.
Those who you think need to be protected wouldn’t know the difference anyway… after the fact.
Collectivism is slavery…
P.S: Tune in something other than Fox, if it makes you happy.
bryan mcclellan
March 29, 2009 at 2:47 am
Collectivism , Is… Slavery by another name.
We are soon to be beyond reproach.
Given the available tangibles I feel we are within Tangibility.
GO HUMANITY…….
bryan mcclellan
March 29, 2009 at 3:20 am
Beat Slavery, ..
Of the Press!
almandine
March 29, 2009 at 3:48 pm
GO BRYAN !
wayne333
March 29, 2009 at 6:43 pm
Well now we have a problem with this. There is case law on the books that allows newscasters on television or on Radio to tell baldfaced laws with impunity. [Read the decision at http://www.2dca.org/opinion/February%2014,%202003/2D01-529.pdf
Essentially what happened was two news people at Fox News refused to read lies on Television. They were fired and sued. They won at the first level and their win was overturned at the appellate level.
Now there is no law that requires even the slightest allegiance to truth if the radio personality or producer wants to misrepresent the truth by utter fabrications. This decision is the source of an amazing pollution of our political process. Reporting has been replaced with propaganda. Citizenship has become essentially a minefield of trying to figure out who is telling the truth and who is spreading the utter filth of exaggeration, misrepresentation and complete fiction.
What can be done? I don’t know. Even educated people can be taken in by such lies. I have been shocked to see friends of mine who are apparently educated and intelligent spouting this filth taken directly from Fox and its lesions festering on the body of public media. Apparently, the law will not protect us from this filth. Permanent vigilance may be the only option.
W
almandine
March 29, 2009 at 8:23 pm
“Citizenship has become essentially a minefield of trying to figure out who is telling the truth and who is spreading the utter filth of exaggeration, misrepresentation and complete fiction.”
I’m not sure what you mean by this, but “citizenship” depends on none of the factors you cite. The only relationship I see regarding citizenship and the fairness doctrine is the right of citizens to free speech and due process, which the fairness doctrine would inhibit or eliminate. As for Fox and other ideological outlets, God knows we can ALWAYS believe those at CNN, MSNBC, Huffington, and the others on the left, too, eh?
The right to free speech is a NON-problem.
Collectivism is slavery…
griff
March 30, 2009 at 2:35 am
Right. Fairness Doctrine is censorship…plain and simple. A government monopoly of information.
woody188
April 1, 2009 at 12:15 pm
The only problem with your suggestion Mike is that a lot of these folks actually believe what they are saying to be the truth. So a lie detector wouldn’t trigger because they believe what they are saying. It’s all about our ability to hold two contradictory concepts in our minds and treat them both as being true. For instance, pre-emptive invasion isn’t aggressive militarism. Iraqi’s fighting against occupation aren’t freedom fighters, they are insurgents and enemy combatants. For that matter, we aren’t occupying Iraq, we are keeping the peace so that democracy may flourish.
Did you believe any of those?
Bet you know someone that does!
wayne333
April 1, 2009 at 10:09 pm
You write: “What passes (poses) as truth anymore is at best filtered… biased propaganda from someone’s perspective.” Now we have known since Hisenberg proposed the uncertainty principle and the observer effect in 1935 that objectivity is impossible. There is no objectivity, never has been. So long as we are human and not robots it can’t happen.
Having said that there is a significant difference between those who attempt to restrain their own biases and present descriptions of events as honestly as they know how to do, and those who begin as political operatives and attempt knowingly with cunning and malice to distort, misrepresent and invent what they are pleased to call the news.
Your assertion that “All points of view are represented, if you take it in the aggregate” must have been said with a wink and finger on the side of your nose as that is just patently bogus. There are many points of view that seldom surface in the public discourse.
One of the irritating moments in this has been the conservative embargo against advertising on Air America. Every effort has been made to suppress and silence Air America. We used to have an outlet here in Memphis that was literally smothered by conservative Republicans who saw to it that every business who advertised on Air America Memphis came under intense pressure up to and including threats to withdraw their ads. Now I can pick up Air America on my computer, but it does not accompany me on my drive to work and back. The only talk show left in the Memphis drive time slot is Hannity. Period. end of possibilities. That does not happen by accident.
You write: “Besides, who could rightfully call our modern news medium (in all its forms) journalism?” Your jaundice for modern news media is not justified in a whole cloth condemnation. There are still places where ethical journalism is practiced.
Your Observation that “TV is almost nothing but entertainment, what you see is what you get – online… Whom do I believe? Certainly NOT government-mandated ‘fairness’” seems to demonstrate exactly what i was insisting was the duty of the citizen. Citizenship ought not to be a passive package of rights. Citizenship ought to include proactive involvement where you make every effort to ensure that the news sources you choose to valorize are worthy of your trust.
News sources that took their talking points directly from the Republican White House were not offering news: they were surreptitiously offering the party line as if it were objectively reported news. This is a knowing and willing fraud designed to hoodwink the public into buying into the alternate reality proposed by the party.
Your observation that “Those who you think need to be protected wouldn’t know the difference anyway… after the fact” is unworthy and tacitly recognizes that there are “those” who are being taken in and have no ability to realize they have been had politically.
This is 1984 come to life. Radical conservative Republicans–are there any moderates left in the party?–have drunk deeply at the Orwellian trough and work hard to make his principle that “He who controls the past, controls the future” a core tenet of their method. They regularly rewrite the past–as we are seeing with the elevation of Saint Ronnie–and project on the opposition the very crimes they themselves are prepetrating or have perpetrated on the public.
Theirs is not a point of view. It is pollution of the public discourse.
BTW I have never pretended to be non partisan. I am a partisan, a democratic activist, a card carrying member and regular donor of the ACLU, a liberal episcopalian. I work in the campaigns of candidates I trust, I canvas neighborhoods. I work at the polls on election day and I have known since GWBush was appointed President that what we had was a coup d’etat, not an election. I do not trust anything conservative Republicans offer. They are, simply put, the enemy of the ordinary American.
Do not accuse me of being non-partisan. That is a distinct unkindness.
W
almandine
April 2, 2009 at 6:29 pm
Well Wayne, for starters it was the NOISE I was commenting on as being non-partisan, as opposed to singularly Republican, and not you. I really don’t know your politics. Maybe multi-partisan is more correct regarding the noise. True “signal” is hard to find these days in that great information din.
Valorizing the otherwise unworthy is not something I choose to waste time on. I am a truly proactive information seeker, and perhaps my range of intersection is greater than most (except many who often post here). As such I usually find many different sources with many different views on the topics of the day. Needless to say, Air America is the very least of my worries. As to the perceived value of all those sources??? I can sort the wheat from the chaff and I do know Polish from polish. Hannity is just another guy with a radio/TV program – and an opinion – and we know about everybody having opinions. Ditto for Rush, Stewart, Colbert, Olbermann, you name ‘em.
I also know – and all you have to do is look around on this site, for example – that the handwriting on the wall can be plain as day and still not get through. Extend that thought throughout the American Idolers, soap opera watchers, dancing with the stars types, etc. and, intellectually speaking, it really doesn’t matter a whit whether they have been had politically… which they have… because just like those of us who think we know the difference, the reality is exactly what it is – anyway – public hue and cry, or not.
In that regard I believe the election of Obama will be looked back on (soon) with far more angst and anger than that of Reagan… I didn’t like or vote for him either… and show that the sales job that got The Big O into office was far more offensive than anything your so-called Republican brainwashing has achieved.
As for the fairness doctrine? It goes against my Libertarian bent – pure and simple.
Collectivism is slavery…