Rush to Obama: Declare yourself on free political speech

posted at 2:00 pm on February 20, 2009 by Ed Morrissey
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Rush Limbaugh throws down another challenge to Barack Obama on the pages of the Wall Street Journal, this time on the Fairness Doctrine — and any other attempts to limit political speech by government fiat.  Rush reminds Obama of his studies of the Constitution at Harvard Law and asks him to justify how the FCC can interfere with the exercise of political speech.  He also reminds Obama that interference in this case could result in the economic collapse of a significant part of the radio industry, and cost thousands of people their jobs:

As a former president of the Harvard Law Review and a professor at the University of Chicago Law School, you are more familiar than most with the purpose of the Bill of Rights: to protect the citizen from the possible excesses of the federal government. The First Amendment says, in part, that “Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” The government is explicitly prohibited from playing a role in refereeing among those who speak or seek to speak. We are, after all, dealing with political speech — which, as the Framers understood, cannot be left to the government to police.

When I began my national talk show in 1988, no one, including radio industry professionals, thought my syndication would work. There were only about 125 radio stations programming talk. And there were numerous news articles and opinion pieces predicting the fast death of the AM band, which was hemorrhaging audience and revenue to the FM band. Some blamed the lower-fidelity AM signals. But the big issue was broadcast content. It is no accident that the AM band was dying under the so-called Fairness Doctrine, which choked robust debate about important issues because of its onerous attempts at rationing the content of speech.

After the Federal Communications Commission abandoned the Fairness Doctrine in the mid-1980s, Congress passed legislation to reinstitute it. When President Reagan vetoed it, he declared that “This doctrine . . . requires Federal officials to supervise the editorial practices of broadcasters in an effort to ensure that they provide coverage of controversial issues and a reasonable opportunity for the airing of contrasting viewpoints of those issues. This type of content-based regulation by the Federal Government is . . . antagonistic to the freedom of expression guaranteed by the First Amendment. . . . History has shown that the dangers of an overly timid or biased press cannot be averted through bureaucratic regulation, but only through the freedom and competition that the First Amendment sought to guarantee.”

Today the number of radio stations programming talk is well over 2,000. In fact, there are thousands of stations that air tens of thousands of programs covering virtually every conceivable topic and in various languages. The explosion of talk radio has created legions of jobs and billions in economic value. Not bad for an industry that only 20 years ago was moribund. Content, content, content, Mr. President, is the reason for the huge turnaround of the past 20 years, not “funding” or “big money,” as Mr. Clinton stated. And not only has the AM band been revitalized, but there is competition from other venues, such as Internet and satellite broadcasting. It is not an exaggeration to say that today, more than ever, anyone with a microphone and a computer can broadcast their views. And thousands do.

I certainly do, as do many of my friends, from both sides of the aisle. In fact, it has never been easier to make yourself and your political opinions heard, as this blog and millions of others attest.  Just as with the radio market, some succeed in drawing large audiences and monetizing their efforts, while some fail to do so.

In the blogosphere, though, only a fortunate few of us make this our jobs.  In radio, as Rush reminds Obama, thousands of people depend on the revenue that talk radio generates.  It generates that revenue because advertisers gravitate towards those shows that gain listeners.  Government intervention will force radio stations to carry shows that listeners don’t want, leading them to tune out — and for advertisers to flee.  Radio stations, which work on small margins now, will go out of business and send their employees into unemployment lines — and that’s if the stations decide to even bother working within the Fairness Doctrine boundaries in the first place.  The FD gives critics plenty of ammunition for licensing mischief that puts too much risk on investors, which is the reason that prior to the repeal of the FD, only 125 stations nationwide even bothered with political talk.

Obama just said that he opposes a reimposition of the Fairness Doctrine, but wants to impose diversity through other means, such as new ownership rules and the like.  What will that mean?  Radio stations will shut down, and when new owners pick up libtalkers, they will find the same success as Obama 1260 in the hardly-conservative Washington DC market.  The AM band will once again drift towards the moribund, and people will lose jobs across the nation.

Does Obama support free political speech and the marketplace?  Or does he support the notion of government dictating political content of broadcasts?  That’s the real question.

And please note which of these two men sounds reasonable and rational, and which relies on sloganeering.  Hint: The latter isn’t the pundit.

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