Define “fairness”

 

A lot of liberal media folks and politicians, especially Sen. Dianne Feinstein, have been complaining loudly lately about conservative talk radio. Over at EPPC, Colleen Carroll Campbell reasons through that argument.

Senator Dianne Feinstein made headlines this week when she proposed to combat “one-sided” and “explosive” conservative talk radio by “looking at” a revival of the Fairness Doctrine.

Appearing on FOX News Sunday, the California Democrat praised the antiquated government regulation that would force broadcasters of conservative programs to give equal time to liberal viewpoints and allow government regulators to police the airwaves for media bias. “I remember when there was a fairness doctrine,” Feinstein said, “and I think there was much more serious, correct reporting to people.”

Feinstein’s nostalgia for the good old days of a mainstream media monopoly is understandable. Before conservative talk radio, the FOX News channel and the blogosphere, life was simpler for politicians — particularly liberal ones. The liberal leanings of media opinion leaders have been documented repeatedly for nearly three decades since a groundbreaking study by university professors S. Robert Lichter and Stanley Rothman found that journalists at national media outlets lean much further left on political and cultural issues than the public at large and overwhelmingly support Democratic presidential candidates over Republican ones.

A more recent confirmation of those findings came this month when an MSNBC study of 143 journalists who made political contributions since 2004 found that nearly 90 percent donated to Democrats and liberal causes.

The imbalance is so overwhelming, it’s a wonder liberal media don’t see it. But think about it….they live and circulate within an environment that’s saturated with the same worldview they hold. And they honestly tend to think that’s just the way people think, the only way to think. 

It brings to mind the line – a fish doesn’t know he’s wet. Until he has to breathe in another environment…

Although such media imbalance rarely troubled Democratic leaders before the rise of conservative radio and FOX News, now some are clamoring for government regulation of the media market. Democratic representatives Maurice Hinchey and Louise Slaughter of New York and Dennis Kucinich of Ohio have backed a revival of the Fairness Doctrine, as has Vermont Independent Senator Bernie Sanders. The liberal Center for American Progress released a report last week calling for increased government regulation to solve the “structural imbalance of political talk radio.” …

The “imbalance” in today’s talk radio is not a structural problem; it is a market phenomenon, a matter of supply and demand. When mainstream media outlets failed to meet the demand for conservative commentary, talk radio filled the void.

Liberals are free to offer their own fare. So far, their forays into commercial talk radio — Air America, for example — have flopped, probably because taxpayer-funded National Public Radio and mainstream media outlets already meet liberal demand for like-minded commentary.

I heard Sen. Feinstein on one of the weekend news shows criticizing conservative talk radio and insisting that there be some balance in order to hear the other side.

Conservative talk radio is the other side, and it has not even balanced the news field yet.