'Broadcast my radio show or you're unfair' - Roger Hedgecock

By Roger Hedgecock March 16, 2009 Last Friday, I was invited by Radio and Records to speak at a talk radio seminar on a panel discussing the "Fairness Doctrine." As one of the panelists (Rep. Mike Pence) said, "I didn't know what I was getting into here. All I heard was I was going to L.A. for some R&R!" By the end of our session, it was very clear that free market capitalism is under attack, not only at the macro level by the Obama administration, but at the industry level (in this case, the radio industry) as well. Moderated by the effervescent Rita Crosby, four of us on the panel (Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., and Mike Pence, R-Ind., legendary talk programmer Brian Jennings and myself) stood up for competition and giving the listening public the programming content of their choice. Three other panel members (Thom Hartmann, Air America; Stephanie Miller, Dial Global; and Paul "Woody" Woodhull, Media Syndication Services) thought the FCC should require station ownership to be "diverse" and should require talk stations to carry liberal/progressive talk shows. The two congressmen led off detailing their efforts in Congress to ban the liberal/progressive censorship effort known as the "Fairness Doctrine." They noted the many Democrat representatives who had publicly championed the reimposition of the "Fairness Doctrine" specifically to muzzle critics in conservative talk radio. I followed with more facts. Of 4,789 AM radio stations in the U.S., about 2,000 of them program some kind of talk, whether political, health, car repair, gardening, relationships, etc. These stations, together with satellite services, cable radio, the Internet, and now even iPod radio give the consumer limitless choices and eliminate the original reason for the "Fairness Doctrine" – that a few station owners could monopolize political discussion. I quoted the Durbin Amendment (SA 591) to the D.C. voting bill (S. 160) that orders the FCC to require "diversity" in station ownership and "localism" – two code words for censoring conservative talk radio and a back-door method of reimposing the "Fairness Doctrine." I detailed President Obama's history of advocating the use of the FCC to regulate which views are heard on the radio. I took the audience through the "stimulus" package (noting that the desk on which Obama signed it was the same desk where Clinton got his package stimulated) which provides $2 billion for "community groups" to help fund "community advisory committees" for every talk station so that conservative talk hosts become subject to a barrage of FCC complaints. [Continue reading]

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