So Obama doesn’t support reimposing the Fairness Doctrine.
That’s good, I guess, considering his chilling statement that he wants to “clarify the public interest obligations of broadcasters who occupy the nation’s spectrum.” But will he go to the mat for the First Amendment? As far as I can tell, he has had absolutely no experience in bucking the wishes of the Democrat establishment. Why would he start now?
Barak Obama’s web site says he wants to encourage diversity in media ownership rather than consolidation. That’s a good goal, but there are no specifics and it would be contrary against every specific policy he has ever supported. So color me suspicious. He needs to be questioned on just how he thinks he would accomplish that.
Also consider the weasel words in the same paragraph in which he talks about diversity: “As president, Obama will … clarify the public interest obligations of broadcasters who occupy the nation’s spectrum.”
That doesn’t sound like an endorsement of the freedoms listed in the First Amendment. Why do those “obligations” need to be clarified, anyway?
Vladimir Putin has been clarifying the public interest obligations of the news broadcasters in Russia.
Hugo Chavez has been clarifying the public interest obligations of the news broadcasters in Venezuela.
Nancy Pelosi has been trying to clarify the public interest obligations of our news broadcasters.
The government of China was busy clarifying the public interest obligations of its news broadcasters during the Olympics.
So why do we need clarified obligations. What’s wrong with just maximizing First Amendment freedoms?
What we need clarity on is what he meant by Obama’s statement. It’s probably too much to expect his adoring groupies in the MSM to bother him with questions, though.
H/T to Paul Greenberg who called attention to Obama’s statement in his article, “The Unfairness Doctrine. And it was good to see him mention Nat Hentoff, who is 83 years old now. When Hentoff is gone, there will be no more liberals.
News item: “Russian President Dmitri Medvedev has promised what he called a shattering blow to anyone threatening Russian citizens.”
It would have been nice if he had been around to offer those protections to Anna Stepanovna Politkovskaya and a couple hundred other journalists who were Russian citizens.
When Anna Politkovskaya was murdered, there were Putin defenders who questioned what he would have to gain from being associated with such a thing. Here’s the answer to that question, from Newsweek:
In the news conference, which lasted nearly five hours, Mr. Putin won applause from the hundreds of local journalists present when he touted Russia’s economic achievements.