Fairness Doctrine

Did you know that talk radio needs to be limited on the airwaves just like pornography?According to Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) it does.I kid you not. At least, that's what he said on Fox News Tuesday morning when asked his position on the Fairness Doctrine (video embedded right):

If President Bush is exhibiting dictatorial behaviors, the editor and publisher of The New York Times would be facing criminal prosecution. That hypothesis come from pundit and "U.S. News" columnist Michael Barone. Appearing on the October 30 edition of "Fox and Friends," Barone laughed off outrageous charges of a Bush dictatorship. He then noted that the true anti-civil libertarian measures are…

A few weeks ago we wrote about the undue and disingenuous attack led by Barack Obama's Chicago HQ perpetrated against Chicago radio host Dr. Milt Rosenberg. Well, last week they did it again, raising their legions to attack the host and his radio station (WGN) and trying to have the unassuming radio host thrown off the air. And what was his "crime"? Rosenberg had the gall to actually interview…

If the idea of the Fairness Doctrine bringing government control of broadcasted speech wasn't bad enough, there's also a possibility that its oversight powers could spill over onto the Internet and control Web content. FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell raised that possibility after talking with bloggers at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. on August 12. McDowell spoke about a recent FCC…

"Liberal Dedication in the Face of Hatred" was the lead teaser on the front page of the print edition of the Washington Post's Metro section on August 2. Inside, staff writer Jacqueline Salmon reported on Unitarian Universalist vigils held in the wake of the July 27 shooting in a Unitarian church in Knoxville, Tenn. in which two died and seven were wounded. Salmon noted the Knoxville police chief…

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is doing a media tour, touting her new book, "Know Your Power: A Message to America's Daughters." On Monday night she sat down for a Q&A with New York Times reporter Elisabeth Bumiller inside the awkwardly named TheTimesCenter, an auditorium connected to the paper's headquarters in Midtown Manhattan. Book flacks aggressively marketed Pelosi's autobiography at the…

Do they represent the people in their districts, or Nancy Pelosi? The Spin Starts Here, or Do As I Say, Not As I DoCongressional Democrats remain silent, acquiescing in Speaker Nancy Pelosi's determination to prevent legislation to block the reimposition of the so-called Fairness Doctrine. For all their prattling about protecting civil liberties, none of them - not a single one - has so far…

Leave it to radio star Martha Zoller to sum up the need for radio independence this Independence Day. Zoller, writing a timely piece for the Business & Media Institute, gives a brief history of the rise of talk radio and a true free market of ideas.Thanks to the left and people like Nancy Pelosi, our ability to have media outlets give other than the liberal party line is jeopardized. It is…

Over at HumanEvents.com, John Gizzi has House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on the record saying that the Democratic caucus, far from being agnostic on the so-called Fairness Doctrine, is actually interested in resurrecting it. What's more, Pelosi herself wants to bring back the policy that could literally silence conservative talk radio. [Sign the MRCAction.org petition for broadcaster freedom…

Laura Ingraham, syndicated radio talk show host and now host of Just In on the Fox News Channel, filled in for Bill O'Reilly, syndicated radio talk show host, on his FNC Show The O'Reilly Factor on Friday, June 20.And led off with her Talking Points Memo, in which she excoriated the left's call for the return of the Fairness Doctrine, dismantling and undermining every liberal (alleged)…

House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) sent a letter to the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission Wednesday urging him to drop recent proposals which amount to "a sweeping takeover by Washington bureaucrats of broadcast media."In his correspondence, Boehner claimed the "proposals and recommendations for Commission action contained in the NPR amount to the stealth enactment of…

Yesterday we at NewsBusters noted how Media Research Center President and NewsBusters Publisher Brent Bozell is backing an effort to move an up-or-down vote on the Broadcasters Freedom Act (BFA), currently stalled in the House of Representatives. Later that evening on his June 11 radio program, conservative talk show host Mark Levin issued a warning- urge your congressman to support the…