Obama's Backdoor To The Fairness Doctrine Advances

Although Obama has publically stated that he does not endorse a return of the Fairness Doctrine, a policy that effectively censors conservative speech on the radio, he did tell the FCC that he wants to see more "minority ownership" of broadcast outlets.

That is essentially his backdoor to censoring talk radio and the Dems in Congress are going to help him do it.

From Amanda Carpenter at Town Hall:

The Senate overwhelmingly approved a measure to prevent the Fairness Doctrine from being reinstated today, yet also agreed to urge the Federal Communications Commission to increase "diversity" on the airwaves. President Obama wrote a letter to the FCC when he was Illinois senator saying action must be taken to increase minority ownership in print and broadcast media. Conservative watchdogs have argued using government to do this is a "backdoor" version of the Fairness Doctrine. Both actions were attached to a larger bill to grant Washington D.C. voting rights. At this point it is unclear if either measure would be included in the final version of the bill. Conservative Sen. Jim DeMint (S.C.) sponsored the amendment to kill the Fairness Doctrine. It passed 87-11. Liberal Sen. Dick Durbin (D.-Ill.) sponsored the competing amendment for more media diversity, which passed 57-41.

So, what we have here is an initiative by the Dems to have government step in and shut down any network or stations that they don't think are "diverse" enough.

I'm pretty sure that Durbin and the other socialists who want to see hosts like Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and Laura Ingraham taken off the air are already thinking up ways to claim that outlets who carry conservative talk radio are not "diverse" enough and also thinking up the legal language to be used to have them shut down. I guess you could call it affirmative action for radio.

Nothing like using a back-door to trample on the First Amendment, eh?

You can access the complete entry on-line here:

Obama's Back Door Fairnes Doctrine Advances
Amande Carpenter
TownHall.com
February 26, 2009