Media: Does Rush Limbaugh make you hot and bothered?
From Wikipedia: Pornography or porn is the explicit depiction of sexual subject matter with the sole intention of sexually exciting the viewer. It is to a certain extent similar to erotica, which is the use of sexually arousing imagery.
Here is U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer equating talk radio with pornography.
Do I think Schumer is sexually aroused by Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck or Michael Savage (all of whom appear on 1470WMBD)? Actually, I have no idea what kinks lurk under Schumer’s hood. I really don’t care.
New York’s senior senator made two points about his desire to reimpose the Fairness Doctrine:
- It’s not like the airwaves are like printing presses, which we don’t have the power to regulate.
- Hey, those dirty, rotten conservatives try to keep pornography off the air, so we have the right to regulate political content.
My two cents: Actually, the government does claim the right to ban pornography whether it’s printed or not. And what gives the government right to regulate what is broadcast on the airwaves. We’ll the government claims to own the airwaves … in the name of the people of course. What are “airwaves?” The electromagnetic sprectrum between the broadcast tower and your radio set, that’s what.* Back in the early, early, early days of radio, there as need to regulate the distribution of wavelengths. This is what led to the the Federal Communications Commission and broadcast licenses.
One early part of this regulation was the “Fairness Doctrine,” which essentially meant that if a license holder let candidate A talk, then Candidate B had the right to the same amount of time. It pretty much kept politics off the air, except for the dryest of news reporting.
The Fairness Doctrine was abolished in 1987, and talk radio exploded. Most of it was bent toward the conservatives. Why? I’m guessing because most of the people who sit around and listen to the radio for hours on end are old people, and old people are more conservative than young people. Anyway, liberals have CNN and the New York Times, so it’s a fair trade, I guess.
But since bullies like Schumer cannot stand the idea that there is one form of media that is not overtly or covertly liberal, they want to bring back the Fairness Doctrine so that go government nag appointed by the Obama administration can hold a stop watch on Rush and make stations like WMBD give out free air time to people he ridicules.
Because THAT’s a good use of government resources during the the word economic downturn since the Great Depression.
Hat tip: Project Fairness.
* Technically, light itself can be described as a form of electromagnetic radiation (or so I’ve been told). So, theoretically, the government could regulate the airwaves between the newspaper page and your eyeballs. It’s for your own good, you know.
November 15th, 2008 at 7:28 am
Billy, it is called “metaphor”, and yes, Limbaugh makes some “hot and bothered” in the sense of getting all angry about stuff.
Al Franken used the term in his book “Lying Liars” to explain why such stuff (and things like Ann Coulter’s books) sell better than more substantial stuff.
That is, you’ll have more listening to Limbaugh than, say, reading the National Review (an intellectual conservative magazine).
If there were a liberal equivalent to Limbaugh, (though there is no symmetry here for many reasons), you might look to, say, Randi Rhodes (though she indeed took calls from conservatives).
November 15th, 2008 at 10:37 am
Ollie, Schumer specifically cites pornography as an example of the government’s right to regulate content AND states that since conservatives like to keep pornography off the airwaves they don’t have the right to complain about an effort to impose other restrictions on content.
He was not speaking metaphorically.
November 15th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
Ok, I watched the clip and no, he didn’t call right wing talk stuff “porn”. He merely pointed out that the government can regulate content and pointed out that the right wing is fine with some regulation of content.
His point is valid. That doesn’t mean that the government *should* regulate political shows but that it isn’t a-priori forbidden to do so.
It also means the “hands off” argument fails.
One can make the argument that overtly political stuff shouldn’t be regulated but it isn’t as simple as “hands off”.
November 15th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
“Back in the early, early, early days of radio, there (w)as need to regulate the distribution of wavelengths.”
There still is, Billy. Try running a pirate radio station on one of the Peoria Fire Department’s main frequencies and see what happens.
One of the main drivers of digital TV is the government’s desire to get analog stations off TV frequencies so they can be auctioned off for alternative uses. (I have never figured out what rationale the FCC uses to sell the public’s radio spectrum, but the government likes the money.)
I’m not a big fan of Limbaugh or Shumer. This crusade to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine plays into the hands of right-wingers by allowing them to portray themselves as victims of a vast left-wing conspiracy. While I rarely watch Fox, every time I do someone is talking about either the Fairness Doctrine or union card check. I guess that’s what happens when the party you carry water for has sold out on all its “big” ideas, like smaller government, fiscal responsibility and individual liberty.
November 15th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
I didn’t mean to imply there is a no longer a need for government regulation of wavelengths. I’m sure some ibertarians believe the market woduld sort things out.
But the government screws up even THAT simple assignment. Look at how the FCC let the broadcast industry delay lower power FM channel licenses. I used to blog about that A LOT.
November 16th, 2008 at 6:38 pm
Did you see the blurb in Tarter’s interview with Tanya Koonce? She said there was a citizen who was looking to do local commentary.
Any ideas who that might be?
November 16th, 2008 at 8:07 pm
Lengthy comment regarding talk radio……
http://a2iq.blogspot.com/2008/11/best-thing-that-could-happen-to.html
November 16th, 2008 at 9:59 pm
Chase: Thanks for the plug. Yea, I overgeneralized a bit, but I think there are statistics that bear this out. Younger folks (especially these days) have other devices they listen to, and for the most part don’t have time to listen to a lot of radio.
November 16th, 2008 at 10:33 pm
[...] they could succeed in re-establishing the fairness doctrine. I discussed the possibility at my other site. But James Fish of the Constitutional Matters Project had this to add: This would be the end of [...]
November 17th, 2008 at 10:57 am
Talk Radio is a problem, but the fairness doctrine is not the solution. I have always commented to those who ask where is liberal talk radio that liberals don’t need someone to do their thinking for them. Shumer is just articulating the frustration that many feel when they hear the most inane (insane) blather (i.e Obama is a socialist, terrorist, marxist, islamofascist, Obama wants to take your guns away, raising the capital gains tax by 5% or providing health care to all is communism, etc. etc. etc.) When asked where he/she heard such b.s. the answer is always the same: Rush, Sean, Dr. Savage, etc. etc. The real question is – how do we teach people to think for themselves. Cutting off their source of B.S. is not the answer, neither is making them listen to well reasoned counterpoints from the vast liberal media. Our best hope is that one day soon the dittoheads will look around and realize that the problems we face today are more complex than Rush and the boys would like them to believe. In the meantime they can keep listening and buying overpriced gold coins, tankless waterheaters, sleep number matresses, and sending in $49.95 to learn how to incorporate their home sales business in Nevada.
November 17th, 2008 at 8:32 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiKh9Ko3mw4
Bill you may have seen this. I just stmbld upn it and thought it kckd ass.
November 18th, 2008 at 9:29 pm
[...] to Peoria (IL) Pundit, who links to our site with a post analyzing Chuck Schumer’s comparison of talk radio to [...]
November 20th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
turns out this is a complete non-issue:
http://www.tnr.com/toc/story.html?id=68d07041-7dbc-451d-a18a-752567145610&k=57255