More than Fair
February 16th, 2009Being progressive, we must accept the premise that the average American is vacuous and ignorant, often willfully so.
The majority of the public won’t act in their own best interests — and certainly not in ours; and are easily duped to do otherwise. They are blind children who require government supervision. It’s the government’s responsibility to make sure these poor waifs are not only well-fed, well-clothed, and well-sheltered, but also well-thought.
Just as a parent must prevent one child from hoarding toys from another, so must the government prevent people having too much of any particular thing, whether that thing is tangible or not. The government must redistribute speech the same way it redistributes income.
As such, one of the more crucial items on our agenda at the commencement of the age of Obama is the return of the Fairness Doctrine — that wonderful policy that takes our constitutional right to speak one step further, by forcing others to listen.
As it was when it was established in 1949, until its undeserved revocation in 1987, the appropriately-named Fairness Doctrine is a useful tool in ensuring that the public airwaves, at least in part, promote our ideals — as most people otherwise would simply fail to appreciate the enlightenment of such great paragons of probity as Air America, Pacifica Radio, and NPR; and would instead listen only to the banal hatred of the far right, who, admittedly, are far more entertaining.
But why settle for just fair?
We must hold this truth as self-evident: we cannot fully unite as one indivisible people until we wipe the stinking corpse of divisive radio off the airwaves. Right-wing radio is a cancer spread over the wasteland between the two coasts, infecting all who come in contact with its poisonous individualism and its belligerency in standing athwart to progress.
The Doctrine’s reestablishment will force radio stations to air unpopular and boring opposing views, which will likely deter many provincial stations from even airing talk radio. The result of which will be that people will have no choice but to receive their news and commentary from the intellectually-reliable mainstream media.
And if the FCC won’t reenact the Fairness Doctrine — along with its close cousin, localism, which requires stations to provide local content; that is, something other than Rush Limbaugh — then it must be codified into law by our brave congressional postpartisans. Even if it has to be passed in the middle of the night, hidden under the verbiage of some transportation bill.
Conservative and libertarian media, of course, will likely moan and bitterly complain; but if a tree falls in the forest but no one can tune in to listen to it, does it make a sound? If they want to get their message out, they’d better learn Morse code.
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© Copyright 2009 by Colin Cohen. All Rights Reserved.
