George Rebane

[This is the addended transcript of my regular KVMR commentary broadcast on 14 February 2014.]

In the roaring 40s, that’s the 1940s, when socialism was still trying to reestablish its Depression era foothold in the United States, the Federal Communications Commission was one of the federal agencies that worked hard to spread its wings over what Americans could be exposed to by the broadcast media.  The FCC bureaucrats were worried that our citizens would forget all the ‘great things’ that the federal government had done for them during the Great Depression.

In 1949 the agency finally issued the regulation known as the Fairness Doctrine.  This mandated all broadcasters to disseminate news of important national issues, and do so in an “honest, equitable, and balanced” manner, especially when it came to contrasting and contending views.  And back in the days when the broadcast spectrum supported only a few outlets, the Supreme Court ruled that the FCC had the right to impose the Fairness Doctrine, but had no obligation to do so.

The doctrine was more or less followed in the ensuing decades until cable and other over air media channels began to proliferate in the 1980s.  At the same time talk radio, geared toward liberal and conservative viewpoints, started drawing audiences.  But the problem quickly arose that liberal talk radio was nowhere near as popular as was the conservative brand.  As liberal audiences dwindled, so did the advertising dollars, and the outlets began dropping leftwing talk radio programs.  Meanwhile conservative programs continued to grow in popularity.

The ensuing proliferation of channels and the unbalanced public reception of political commentary programs began drawing the ire of liberal advocacy groups in the late 1980s.  And soon they lobbied Democratic members of Congress to introduce new bills that would compel the FCC to start enforcing ‘fairness’ and ‘equal time’ regulations on each broadcaster.  However, such efforts to stifle the markets’ selection of desired programming didn’t go very far, because the main argument that there were only a limited means for people to get the word no longer held.  Cable, radio, TV, and soon the World Wide Web or internet swamped all those concerns.  Anyone with a political or ideological message could get on a media channel that could reach out to the world for very low or no cost at all.

The main consideration again focused on interest in the delivered message, and there the progressives’ view of the world and events came up short.  This trend has continued and, in fact, doubled down as conservative talk radio and Fox News commentary program ratings have soared, while leftwing outlets like NBC and its cable cohort MSNBC audiences have dwindled to insignificance.  Now this unhappy situation has again attracted the attention and apparent ire of the ever progressive FCC.

This week FCC Commissioner, Mr Ajit Pai, reported in the 11feb14 edition of the Wall Street Journal that the FCC is once more starting to investigate fairness and balance in media (here).  It will do this through a new survey that it is sending to all broadcasters and print media publishers.  The latter is somewhat interesting since the FCC has no jurisdiction over print media.

Commissioner Pai tells us the agency plans to launch its "’Multi-Market Study of Critical Information Needs,’ or CIN, (and) send researchers to grill reporters, editors and station owners about how they decide which stories to run. … The purpose of the CIN, according to the FCC, is to ferret out information from television and radio broadcasters about ‘the process by which stories are selected’ and how often stations cover ‘critical information needs’, along with ‘perceived station bias’ and ‘perceived responsiveness to underserved populations.’”

This study gives strong evidence that the FCC is planning to involve itself once again and more than ever in managing what Americans will see and hear that in the government’s opinion will be of adequate content that is also fair and balanced.  Given that the lamestream will give the story a pass, we all should continue to view this development through a gimlet eye.

My name is Rebane, and I also expand on this and related themes on NCTV and georgerebane.com where the transcript of this commentary is posted with relevant links, and where such issues are debated extensively.  However my views are not necessarily shared by KVMR.  Thank you for listening.

[Addendum]  Whenever a report such as the above reappears, it raises (or should raise) the question as to why the popularity differences in the flavors of America’s talk radio.  I have offered a sprinkling of my thoughts on the matter over the years, and will attempt to gather them here for a more comprehensive and coherent record of what factors I believe contribute to the failure of collectivist talk radio of all stripes, and the success of talk radio that promotes conservetarian principles and solutions.

1.    Socialism is a system that on its face is inimical to the traditional spirit of liberty and self-reliance that was intrinsic in the character of the people who colonized and then immigrated to America.  To this day socialism is a philosophy of governance that cannot speak its name, and must be denied even as its principles and programs are promoted.
2.    The modern history of collectivism in its various forms comprise the dismal chapters in the post-Renaissance story of Man.  They too must be either ignored or rewritten for mandated consumption that starts in our government schools.  On talk radio they lay themselves open for unanswerable criticism from the educated listeners.
3.    The natural audience for leftwing talk radio is comprised of transfer payment recipients.  When such listeners are continually exposed to the ‘shortcomings’ of a society that does not pay them and theirs enough, they sooner than later come to realize that they are, in fact, wards of the state.  This is not something that one bathed in unwarranted self-esteem wants to be reminded of day in and out, so they don’t listen.
4.    Many (most?) who believe that their fair share has been taken by the rich, the greedy, the rednecks, the religious, the … have little understanding and/or interest in competitive politics, economics, and/or the intricacies of public policies.  And most certainly their interest in such affairs stops when the government checks arrive.
5.    Most people of the Left persuasion believe that to remain ignorant and unskilled is an unalienable right that should be protected and promoted by government.  They also believe that pure democracy is the best form of social organization, and the America bequeathed to us by the Founders.  They take as prima facie evidence of rightwing evil when they hear or are told that conservative talk radio daily preaches their belief to be a lie, and exhorts its listeners that staying dumb is socially irresponsible and bad for the Republic.
6.    But most fundamentally, the leftwing listener by his nature and capacity is bored to tears hearing the (especially numerical) specifics of the socially just and more desirable public policies, or how the environment is protected by layers of beneficial regulations, or the details of the overwhelming evidence for AGW and its world saving palliatives, or the latest gains made by teachers unions and in new progressive curricula like Common Core, and on and on.  This is not the sum and stuff of the informationally thin, ideologically innocent but intrinsically collectivist listener who always wants a more ‘equitable share’ of the national weal to come his way, and not be bothered by extraneous details of how that may happen.  The liberal listener needs to hear only about who will promise him the largest largess, and that can be easily determined (if at all) just before election time.  (After all, why did God invent soundbites?)
7.    On the other hand, conservetarian talk radio has an ever growing trove of evidence, factual material, and everyday observables that speak to the follies of central planning, ignorant bureaucracies, inept government workers, and common senseless waste.  Its hosts and guests can and do present this unending stream of data and information in an entertaining and (sometimes painfully) humorous manner.  The monologues are interspersed with vignettes of the small and agile citizen end running, outsmarting, or avoiding the heavy hand of the leviathan.  Conservetarian listeners not only become more aware of the scale of government overreach and encroachment, but also that their own efforts to survive in a rising sea of regulation and taxes is vindicated and celebrated.  They draw from the programs’ contents the validation that they are the producers, the socially responsible, the wealth creators, and those whose taxes make it all possible.  And they also draw hope from proposed public policies that will allow them to regain their lost liberties, and enable their enterprising efforts to achieve more for their own and their neighbors.  These listeners walk away with a greater understanding of what is happening and why, and of their positive role in the larger scheme of things.  Then tomorrow they tune in again for the next entertaining and uplifting chapter of the American saga.
8.    So to summarize, in order to attempt intellectual peerage with conservative talk radio, America’s liberal talk radio must painfully remind its listeners who and what they are also in the larger scheme of things.  Then with their identities confirmed, these listeners look around and see a dynamic country worked by people knowledgeable, skilled, and rewarded – a world from which more and more they feel excluded.  So why submit to such self-denigration?

[18feb14 update]  Our designated reader reports that the Left is all in a hissy fit about The Union’s latest columnist George Boardman.  I have not had the pleasure of meeting the man and know him only through his writings.  But regardless of his ideology and writings, I do feel a certain kinship with him since I also fall into that group of (former) Union columnists proscribed by our self-proclaimed and auto-congratulated Great Community Uniters.

The Union’s editorial policy is what it is, and as a privately owned newspaper and business enterprise it can publish what it will.  If I disagree enough with that trumpet, then I can argue my case with its management, and as a last resort I can always vote with my wallet.  For the record the Rebanes have been Union subscribers since we moved here in 2002.

Getting back to Mr Boardman, who advertises the source of his worldview as providing “observations from the center stripe”, I would ask him the question that I have always asked people from that part of the ideological highway – can you list any specific tenets that distinguish you from those who inhabit either lane of the road (or even reside on the shoulders)?  I forget the last go around I had with such a reader, but a memorable one was with my friend RL ‘Bob’ Crabb who operates a delightful blog nearby.  As with others of similar ilk, I was not able to draw out any specifics beyond generalized platitudes.   (more here and here and here)

And there it stands, we simply don’t know what the folks in the center believe, because their message is always a critique of positions they ascribe to one side or the other.  Having done that they leave their audience contemplating their purist position that is untrammeled by anything that permits understanding the shape, cohesion, and breadth of their belief system.  They seem enjoy casting their rhetorical bolts from the central divide, all the while being enveloped in a swirling fog of ideological ambiguity.