[BC] Fairness doctrine by another name? Donna's humble request

[Donna Halper]

At 07:14 PM 2/17/2009, Tom wrote:
>Donna...
>
>recognize this?
>
>Amendment 1 - Freedom of Religion, Press, Expression. Ratified 
>12/15/1791. Note
>
>Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, 
>or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or _/*abridging the 
>freedom of speech*//*, or of the press*/_; or the right of the 
>people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a 
>redress of grievances.

Umm, did I even say I was in favour of restoring the Fairness 
Doctrine?  I was only saying that talk radio is overwhelmingly and 
(in my view) unfairly conservative.  I was also saying the right-wing 
talking points and scare tactics posted to this list were inaccurate 
and inflammatory and basically false.  Ed Schultz, the best-known and 
most successful of the progressive talkers (and would everyone stop 
saying "Air America" when they mean progressive talk?  The most 
successful leftie talkers are syndicated nationally by what was the 
Jones Radio Network-- now called Dial Global-- they are not and never 
have been run by Air America)  does not favour the Fairness Doctrine, 
and he has said so on his show a number of times.  His question has 
always been about why his show (or Stephanie Miller's for that 
matter) is not given a chance on stations with bigger signals-- he 
gets good ratings in many cities and his show has been turning a 
profit since 2005.

My friend Willie's argument, and yours to some degree Tom, is 
actually based on another of those erroneous right wing talking 
points. Back in the old days, the religious stations were ALWAYS 
exempt from any efforts at balance-- Christian stations were 
Christian, and nobody expected them to include Jews or Buddhists or 
Muslims.  The FCC left religious shows alone, and I would expect that 
to continue.  The only exception was  if a host slandered or attacked 
somebody-- the cases based on the Personal Attack Rule have been sort 
of misquoted, but the bottom line is that even on a religious 
station, you could not make false statements about somebody's 
character or their views, nor could you say they deserved to be 
killed.  You could disagree with their views and say so (as religious 
stations often did), but slander was not considered protected 
speech.  So if Ann Coulter or Michael Savage said again that one of 
the Democrats they dislike ought to be shot, that would not be 
protected, and the object of their wrath would be allowed to answer.