Sacramento Bee: Conservative talk radio is a threat to demoracy

[Chris_]

There's a mournful hush in Sacramento these days, the empty sound of an entire political viewpoint quieted. More than 32,000 weekly listeners who once tuned to KSAC (1240 AM) to hear partisan Democrats beat up on President George W. Bush, now hear only Christian hip-hop.

Why must they go online when they get home just to hear the other side? Why should traveling salesman and long-haul truckers, who can drive across several states without hearing any progressive point of view, have to pay hundreds of dollars for satellite radio to replace what they already own for free? Why should rural communities, which depend first on AM radio for their information and who are lucky to get low-speed Internet access, be deprived of any political balance on their own airwaves?

We have allowed policy-makers in this country to create a so-called marketplace to promote one message almost exclusively over another.

But there really is no marketplace at all. Anybody can start a new coffee shop across from Starbucks and compete for business. But almost nobody can just start a new radio station to compete for listeners; the airwaves are limited, and the frequencies are already taken – mostly by big corporations.

Considering a 2003 Gallup poll showing that 22 percent of Americans get their information from talk radio, we're not just talking about what is fair play; we are talking about a threat to the democracy we hold dear.

http://www.sacbee.com/110/story/927485.html


More melodramatic kvetching from big-city liberals.  Someone should remind her that most daily papers are decidedly non-conservative in their reporting, as well as the national broadcast and cable news departments, and quite a few magazines as well.  I'm not surprised she doesn't get it... she used to be a government employee collecting a check from PBS.  She works for KGO now, the station that put Bernie Ward on the air.

[Lacarnut]

Poor baby

[Lord Undies]

This entire weepy lament is as phony as liberalism itself.  This reporter has is no interest in having lefty views on the radio.  It is pointless and hate-filled and no one wants to listen, which is good for the left because the more exposure they get, the more folks see through their bullsh*t.

The goal of this article is to make a case for the resurrection of the ridiculously named "Fairness Doctrine".  If the doctrine is put back into use it will destroy talk radio.  The goal isn't to add the liberal message to radio.  The goal is to subtract conservatives from the airwaves.   

[Ptarmigan]

Sacramento Bee is a leftist rag. It is run by Janis Besler Heaphy, who got shouted down at Sacramento State in late 2001 for making a commencement speech that was too political in nature.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/12/19/MN171216.DTL

[JohnnyReb]

Everything was fine for years......as long as this shoe only fit the left foot.

[Willow]

from the article

"Why would advertisers steer clear of progressive talk? Chris Jones, managing editor of the blog "the Hot Points," writes: "What respectable business is going to send millions of dollars in ad revenue to people who bash the president, the country and the war on a constant basis? Not only that, but liberals never miss an opportunity to bash corporations as evil and crooked. Why the hell would big business support the enemy?"




bullseye!