Slips showing in Correctness Party

"Are bloggers journalists?" asked media critic Jason Salzman on the Rocky's opinion page, Mar. 29. Some are, some aren't, he answered delphically. But on the evidence of his own paper this weekend, Salzman might better have asked: Are journalists reliable? Can MSM writers and editors be counted on for accuracy in citing easy facts, using good English, and shaping up each other's copy when needed? Not always, it seems.

Inches away from the Salzman column was an oped by Jane Urschel, an education lobbyist and Ph.D., who began with the confident assertion that Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech of 1963 occurred "thirty-five years ago." Rocky columnist Mike Rosen made a similar flub the previous day in placing the November 2006 death of Milton Friedman at "several months" ago in November 2007.

The weekend's best pot & kettle moment came when the ultra-assured Garrison Keillor, writing next to Urschel on Saturday, mentioned "the Puritans who I am descended from" -- any 6th grader knows that pronoun should be "whom" -- but then a few lines later lit into someone who used "me and him" as the subject of a sentence.

Keillor summed up smugly, "I belong to the Correctness Party, the party of good spellers, of people who pay attention to details," and couldn't resist adding that this makes him infinitely superior to President Bush, "intellectually... a charity case all his life."

Right you are as usual, Garrison. Ask not for "who" the charity bell tolls; it tolls for "thou." Then again, what business is it of mine, a mere slapdash blogger, to dare correct you and all the other unerring MSM journalists?

Wild swirls, no; wild girls, no problem

On Fox News the other night, Oct. 19, there was a discussion between Greta Van Susteren and Laura Ingraham about "Girls Gone Wild,"the national TV show that features such debauchery as inebriated 18-year-old girls flashing the camera with their bare breasts. Ms. Ingraham expressed the view that such displays are a demeaning exploitation of women (true). Yet Ms. Van Susteren held that such activities could not and should not be stopped owing to 1st Amendment constitutional liberties (which is also true). The question to ask is this: why is not Joe Francis doing a "Saudi Arabian Girls Gone Wild" version of his show? Probably because he knows it would be suicidal. That again is true -- and it's a direct, if extreme, extension of Laura Ingraham's point.

Greta Van Susteren, the apparent secularist, has subconsciously embraced the progressive view that does two things in cases like this.

One, it substitutes legalism for morality. This is the principal reason the ACLU is working diligently to sever the Judeo-Christian roots of our society. It seeks to enhance the idea that activist judges are the ones to determine good and evil. This would pave the way to euthanasia of the aged and handicapped, as well as wholesale abortion; an overall devaluation of life such as we see in Holland today. Though the ACLU paints itself as a "defender of liberty," what they really wish to do is install a progressive, elitist governance of our society by those (themselves) who "know better what's good for us".

Secondly, progressivism assumes there could only be a governmental solution to such an issue and reaches for it.

Laura Ingraham, by contrast, advocates public outrage to shut such programs down. The purveyors of the various degrees of X ratings would never show restraint unless pressured to do so, or when faced with broad moral disapproval such as there still is (we'll see for how long) against pedophilia and bestiality.

The liberal media is manifestly terrified of religious and moral condemnation when its originates from the Islamics. Muslim fury at the slightest perceived insult has even the most ardent liberals running for cover. A recent example was Islamic objection to an ad for ice cream cones because the swirls on top looked something like the Arabic for "Allah." Certainly, then, a "Saudi Arabian Girls Gone Wild" is out of the question.

And if our Western Civilization is to survive, at some point the "Girls Gone Wild" should be out of the question here as well. The corollaries of illegimate births, smashed lives and the poverty of single mom households are not a good thing.

A ruse by any other name

Old media and new or alternative media are one pair of names by which we feel our way toward a workable description of America's info-saturation on politics and public affairs in the 21st century. The two groupings supposedly compete not only for market share, but also for the upper hand in how people interpret the news. Websites, blogs, and talk radio are usually put in the "new" category. But where then do PoliticsWest.com and its Gang of Four blog, where I'm a contributor, fit in? Being creatures of the Denver Post, an "old" conventional newspaper company, they are thus hardly adversarial to it. Maybe a more useful map emerges if we group the voices by viewpoint, rather than by their technology of delivery or sociology of organization.

This occurred to me when Mike Rosen of KOA and the Rocky Mountain News, lecturing in Colorado Springs last week for the El Pomar Foundation, gave a perceptive and fair-minded hour's discussion on bias in the media. (Don't take my word for its fairness; Prof. Tom Cronin of Colorado College, an eminent political scientist and proud Democrat, said he agreed with 80% of Mike's observations.)

On the matter of terminology, Rosen said he never uses the "mainstream media" designation that has become commonplace among many conservatives, me included, because it implies that the viewpoint of the New York Times, CBS, AP, Newsweek, NPR, and their ilk is in accord with America's mainstream or centrist attitudes -- whereas he believes those old-media organs are well to the left. I of course agree, and will try to switch from referring to the MSM and instead start using Mike's preferred term, "dominant liberal mass media."

The NYT's liberal slant has seldom been more obvious than in its current embarrassment over the apparent $100,000-plus discount from standard ad rates that was given MoveOn.org for the Sept. 10 full-page blast against General Petraeus. This glaring departure from profit-maximizing business practice disproves the left's pet notion that the Times is equally as committed as Fox News to some conservative status quo because both are "corporate media." Such was the argument at Rosen's speech from one "Steve the Socialist," a favorite on-air foil of his who lives in the Springs and showed up for the event.

Mike exposed its lameness by pointing out that the only alternative to a corporate business organization and ownership model for the news media would be a government ownership -- and how would Steve like that? Point made, game over. Their exchange recalled a classic Daniel P. Moynihan sally that Mike had quoted earlier, to the effect that in countries where the press is full of good news, the jails are often full of good people.

The MoveOn subsidy scandal is one more reminder that whatever name you give "them," old media or mainstream media or dominant liberal mass media, they have an unadmitted bias problem. Their professed objectivity is but a pretense -- a ruse which, by any other name, still smells.

[Cross posted on PoliticsWest.com]

Post wrong on Rove

The verdict on President Bush, his departing strategist Karl Rove, and Republican political hopes is hardly as settled or as negative as one would gather from the purple prose of last Wednesday's Denver Post editorial, "Rove's departure testifies to a weak administration." What's weak is the pun on White House staffers' proper refusal to testify (get it?) about their confidential advice to the chief executive, under oath to a fishing expedition of the legislative branch. Rove hasn't given and won't give an inch on that principle; sorry, Democrats.

As for the editorial's line of argument, if you can call it that, who says failure will be Bush's legacy? A strong economy, six years without another 9/11 attack, and 50 million people in Iraq and Afghanistan liberated from tyranny and given a fighting chance at self-government, add up to a pretty respectable term of stewardship over the nation's highest office. Karl Rove helped Bush achieve all that, after helping him become the first presidential son ever to win the White House twice, after helping him become Texas governor in a stunning upset over Ann Richards, darling of the liberal media.

Not bad for a pudgy, bespectacled wonk of humble Denver origins. The other Colorado-born guy who figured prominently in Election 2004 was Sen. John Kerry, last seen windsurfing off the Cape; sorry again, Democrats.

Much of this long-winded piece reads less like political analysis than like Dennis Kucinich revving up the Netroots. Count the bromides: (1) Bush isn't low in the polls because his "failed policies... are legion," he's low because of Iraq, period. (2) The war wasn't "politicized" by Rove; war is inescapably political in a democracy like ours. He merely pointed out the obvious in noting that the American people don't want a repeat of our humiliating "cut and run" Vietnam defeat.

(3) Despite the editorial's gibe that those words now sound ironic, the irony really goes the other way as Congress has time and again recoiled from mandating an Iraq pullout. Rove didn't script the recent spectacle of top Democrats worrying aloud that US gains on the battlefield will hurt their party politically. And (4) it's untrue that "the situation in Iraq has never been more grim." Under Petraeus it's getting less grim by the day, hence those nervous Dems.

Post editors even harrumph at the sinister Rove for (5) "controlling the message as always, and placing it in [the Wall Street Journal's] friendly hands." What was he supposed to do: announce his resignation on Air America? Or maybe give Keith Olberman an exclusive? Come on.

(6) With a closing flourish of unconscious irony at their own expense, the editors --who saw Rove's candidate beat the one they favored in 2000 -- laugh off his prediction that George W. Bush will rebound in public approval and that the GOP will elect his successor next year. Har har, what does that dolt Karl Rove know about politics?

Final bromide (7): The absurdity of his forecast, you see, is demonstrated by Bush and the Republicans having lost both houses of Congress last year. Case closed, Dems win, don't even bother holding the election. But there is the little matter of history. FDR lost big in both houses in 1938, then won big for a third term in 1940. Harry Truman lost Congress in 1946 and was reelected in 1948. Eisenhower lost Congress in 1954 and was reelected in 1956. Reagan lost the Senate in 1986, then saw Bush the elder, his VP, win handily in 1988.

So that's four contrary cases in 70 years, two D and two R, for the editors' allegedly clinching indicator of a sure Republican loss in 2008. But never mind, these guys ignore troublesome data with the aplomb of the IPCC global warming claque.

My bottom line from all this is that, first, the Post shouldn't bother submitting this particular editorial for a Pulitzer, and second, Americans should thank and congratulate Karl Rove for selfless service to his country.

Mr. Rove, like his friend and boss Mr. Bush, exemplifies the best tradition of the Man in the Arena, about whom Theodore Roosevelt spoke so memorably. Indeed, something tells me TR will get along splendidly with both W and Karl when they all meet some day, up at the big Bully Pulpit in the sky.

A radio entrepreneur dissects the Fairness Doctrine

The First Amendment states: "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." This was worked out in Colonial and Revolutionary times with the correct assumption that the government would almost never be neutral. Freedom of Speech has always meant… Absence of Government Control.

The Fairness Doctrine Defined: Government requirement that when a certain position on a controversial issue of public importance is broadcast, the broadcast licensee is required to present the other side of the issue.

Fairness Doctrine History: The Radio Act of 1927 created the Radio Commission (later becoming the Federal Communications Commission or FCC) and its successor the 1934 Communications Act created a government system of granting licenses for publicly owned broadcast frequencies. The major condition attached was to “operate with public interest.” The FCC was charged with enforcement.

Starting in 1929, the “public interest” condition was interpreted as requiring that a licensee provide “ample play for the free and fair competition of opposing views on all discussions of issues of importance to the public.”

Over the years this developed into the Fairness Doctrine and became an integral part of FCC mandate. In 1949, the FCC issued two requirements regarding Editorials on Radio… “Broadcasters must give adequate coverage to public issues and this coverage must accurately reflect opposing views on the issue.”

In 1959, Congress amended Sec. 315 of the Communication Act with the Equal Time Provision… “The licensee that allows one candidate to use the broadcast station shall afford equal opportunities to all other candidates for that office.” It also stated that nothing in the amended Section 315 relieves Broadcasters of the “obligation” to “afford reasonable opportunity for the discussion of conflicting views on issues of public importance.”

From 1959 to 1981, The FCC consistently interpreted the 1959 Amendment to Sec. 315 as codifying the Fairness Doctrine. In fact, in the landmark 1969 Red Lion Case the Fairness Doctrine was upheld by the Supreme Court. The Court cited “scarcity of stations and codification of the Fairness Doctrine” as the primary reason for the decision. The Court also stated “the decision could change if it was demonstrated that the Doctrine reduced rather than encouraged discussion of public issues.”

Interestingly in 1974, a law imposing an obligation of fairness on newspaper editorials was declared invalid as applied to print media in Miami Herald vs. Tonilla. Print media has no Fairness Doctrine.

In 1981 the FCC, perceiving changes in the conditions cited by the Supreme Court in Red Lion, asked Congress to repeal the Fairness Doctrine. No action was taken. In 1985 the FCC determined the Fairness Doctrine was not codified in 1959. In 1986, the D.C. Circuit Court upheld the FCC by ruling that the 1959 Amendment did not codify the Fairness Doctrine.

In 1987 the FCC formally abolished the Fairness Doctrine on grounds that: (1) It did not serve the public interest. (2) The scarcity of media issue had disappeared. (3) It violated The First Amendment.

Since 1987, broadcasters have operated without the Fairness Doctrine and talk radio has flourished. During this time there have been many calls by public figures for reinstatement and bills have been repeatedly introduced in Congress to codify the Fairness Doctrine… all with huge public negative reaction.

In 1988, Congress overwhelmingly passed a bill reinstating the Fairness Doctrine, but it was vetoed by President Reagan. In 1991, with massive grassroots support, President Bush threatened to veto a similar bill, thus stifling a second attempt on Congress’s part to resurrect the Fairness Doctrine. In 1993 the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the FCC had acted in a reasonable manner in abolishing the Fairness Doctrine.

Since the 2006 elections, the almost daily cries from legislators to bring back the Fairness Doctrine has reached high fever pitch… as if something as significant as the 2008 election outcome depended on it. No doubt this will intensify. There are two ways the Fairness Doctrine could be brought back: Either the FCC simply reinstates it, or Congress codifies it.

If the Fairness Doctrine is reinstated, history indicates these things (and more) will happen:

1. The First Amendment, which these days seems to be the number one target, will again be significantly depreciated, further eroding our Freedom of Speech.

2. The political party in power will use the Fairness Doctrine to silence critics as was well documented during the Kennedy and Nixon administrations.

3. Many leading broadcast licensees will see their licenses at risk and will play it safe by imposing strict speech control.

4. The national and local robust town hall meetings known as talk Radio will quickly become mundane, dull and milk-toast-like and mostly disappear.

5. Religious speech will be threatened by new government guidelines regarding what constitutes controversial and public issues… issues like same-sex marriage and abortion.

6. The overwhelming majority of the time the public will hear only the Liberal viewpoint presented as “fair and balanced” by the three major TV Networks, the vast majority of newspapers and the major magazines. Déjà vu!

Media Scarcity: Media access has dramatically changed since the 1969 Supreme Court Red Lion case. Today there are many more radio stations, even in small communities, satellite radio, internet radio and the internet itself, plus an abundance of FM stations which were few in 1969. Everyone agrees scarcity is no longer an issue.

Conclusion: The Fairness Doctrine’s frontal assault on Freedom of Speech not only trashes a vital part of our Constitution but does great harm to our country, nationally and locally by stopping a healthy public debate that is essential in our common search for truth. Preventing the reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine is… A HILL TO DIE ON!

Stuart Epperson is Chairman of the Board, Salem Communications Corporation. Among Salem's many media properties across the country are 710 KNUS, the flagship station of Backbone Radio, and Townhall.com