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Nancy Pelosi vs. the Internet
selil writes "A story popped up on the ChicagoBoyz Blog. It says 'Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who would like very much to reimpose the old, so-called, "Fairness Doctrine" that once censored conservative opinion on television and radio broadcasting, is scheming to impose rules barring any member of Congress from posting opinions on any internet site without first obtaining prior approval from the Democratic leadership of Congress. No blogs, twitter, online forums — nothing.'"
"We know what's best for you"
the old, so-called, "Fairness Doctrine" that once censored conservative opinion on television and radio broadcasting
[Citation needed]
Tweet, tweet.
So, Submitter says that the right-wing Chicagoboyz blog says that Congressman Culberson says that Congrassman Brady says that Congressman Capuano says that Majority Leader Pelosi says she wants to stifle free spech?
EVERYBODY PANIC!
How dare you? If you post the real document people might read it! And see that this - analysis? - is a crock of horseshit.
I read it three times, and it seems pretty standard. Basically, it's mostly about links to non-official websites and standards those outside sites must meet. It's no different than the rules that most corporations place on user-maintainable CMS systems.
Note: it never discusses approval of any particular piece of content (except to the extent that official postings already have to meet certain standards), just having pre-approved sites.
They just have very specialized knowledge. The knowledge of how to get themselves elected, keep getting re-elected and moving up the chain of authority.
All of that schmoozing and such does not leave much time for learning anything else.
So they rely upon "advisors" for their "information". And said "information" has to be communicated to them in the least technical terms. Which results in statements about "tubes" and "trucks".
But to be fair to them, my CFO asked a little while ago if the power problems we had were a result of her sending an email to Iceland. After all, it must take a lot more power to push the message that far than to push it across the street.
Basically it's saying that if you have official content you want to post (e.g. big videos) that you can't post on house.gov, you currently can't do it. Since some content is hard to post, Pelosi is suggesting new rules that allow it to be possible, within guidelines.
It's actually more permissive than our Internet posting policies here at work. Right now, you have to work through us (the web services team), as opposted to setting up your own URL and posting whatever you want outside of the official content.
Some of these ground rules are
The hyperbole by the obviously conservative-leaning original poster and the TFA is ridiculous and is just a prime example of alarmist propaganda, trying to blow this WAY out of proportion.
It's simply a proposal for ground rules as the committee examines extending the ability of members of congress to post "official" content outside of existing official channels. Rather than being a "clamp down", it's actually broadening the number of venues members of congress can use for posting "official" congressional communications, but tries to ensure that there will be some level of decorum and good taste.
Start a happiness pandemic
Hm. Maybe I am in the wrong, but it is starting to appear to me that some newsposts on Slashdot needs to be reviewed more carefully. Then again having crap served to us now and again is perhaps good for keeping us critical.
The Long Now Foundation
Please don't vote if you don't realize McCain is a senator is this has to do with House rules.
I'll counter with Grey's law: "Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice."
Start a happiness pandemic
impugn the dignity of the congress.
Do you know what to impugn means, or why prohibiting it is an infringement on free speech?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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The crack about the Fairness Doctrine is particularly illuminating because it is so ignorant.
The Fairness Doctrine. was a pre-internet rule supported by both Conservatives and Liberals, used because the government was controlling who could broadcast television and radio.
Since broadcast mass media "speech" was already totally controlled ("non-free") on the airwaves via the FCC (though for reasons of technology rather than politics), the lucky (and very wealthy) few who had been granted the privilege to broadcast were required to provide time to both sides of any controversial issue. This rule was administered by the FCC, who still performs the same function today with regards to moral standards, language, etc... pretty much everything but politics, where they were instructed by Reagan and Bush (sr. and jr.) to stop (and not yet forced by congress to resume, despite several failed attempts).
The Fairness Doctrine is as irrelevant on the Internet as it is to a newspaper or a public park, since there is no meaningful barrier for anyone to "speak" in these venues.
It will not be thus forever, but today in 2008, TV and radio still have a substantial audience and influence (as evidenced by gross advertising revenues), and it is still only an exclusive, government controlled elite club who can broadcast on these systems. Repealing the Fairness Doctrine essentially allowed the broadcasters as a whole to skew farther to one side of the ideological spectrum or the other legally (where before it would have been very difficult to go too far and stay within the law). Those with wealth and power (and that changes in cycles) can thus use the broadcast media for propaganda purposes, a concept familiar in places like Russia, Italy, etc. and now increasingly familiar here in the USA.
As Rupert Murdoch is now considerably warm towards Barack Obama (see the WSJ), I wonder if Conservatives who previously thought this was a great idea are now beginning to reconsider.
Murdoch himself has a history of switching the political orientation of his propaganda machine; in the U.K., for instance.
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The fairness doctrine doesn't censor anything.
It allows for equal time and space of people with opposing or different views.
No. It REQUIRES equal time and space for people with opposing or different views. Big difference.
Conservative talk radio is a business, collecting revenue by attracting ears for advertisers. It spends long blocks of time - like three hour chunks - on particular points of view. The fairness doctrine would require stations playing it to give equal blocks of time - in equivalent timeslots - to anti-conservative viewpoints, which would NOT attract the target demographic. This would be a massive financial hit (in a number of ways) on any station that played a talk show with enough of a point-of-view to invoke the doctrine.
The result would be that such stations would drop political talk shows entirely. This would leave the entire political content of stations coming from their news coverage (which has been shown, by an objective scale developed by Stanford and UCLA researchers, to be massively left-biased). The entertainment content is similarly left-biased (though not subject to the methodology used on news coverage.) As one big talk show host says: "I AM equal time!"
The left has just as much opportunity to field its own talk shows with its own biases. And it has tried, several times. But (with a few notable exceptions in extremely liberal areas, such as KGO radio in San Francisco) their content has failed to attract enough of an audience to be profitable. So shutting down political talk radio by reinstitution of the so-called "fairness doctrine" would have the effect of massively suppressing conservative political viewpoints on broadcast media.
A flip side is that the conservatives could potentially start a news organization of their own, covering conservative viewpoints. Indeed, this HAS been done to some extent, in the form of Fox News. But FNN has shown its true colors in the primary season: It covers only ONE of the four or so major conservative factions' positions and is perfectly happy to blatantly suppress the others.
Starting a new wholly-owned NETWORK by buying a little station in each major market is forbidden by FCC rules, which limit the amount of the population stations owned by a single entity can reach to well under 50%. So they'd have to recruit a lot of independents. (And you can bet, if they were succeeding, there would be attempts to invoke the fairness doctrine against them, adding massive legal costs to the equation.)
So with talk radio as the only broadcast outlet for conservative political thought (but not effective for liberal positions), and liberal political thought dominating entertainment content and most news coverage, shutting down political talk radio by reimposing the fairness doctrine would be a massive blow to the right and a victory for the left.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Since the letter doesn't mention the fairness doctrine, I wouldn't tilt at that windmill if I were you.
The first part is true, the second part is not. Or at least the second part grants the unsubstained allegation that the recommendations are that evil. The letter reads, to paraphrase:
Nothing about unoffical postings is being mentioned (a member's twitter account, for instance.) And it seeks to expand, not limit, options.
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This isn't that a congress critter can't do something the "impugn the dignity of congress" they just can't do it and stamp it as an "official" congressional document. It simply is not an official opinion of the congress, but rather that of the individual.
They're still perfectly welcome to post whatever bile they want on airportbathroomstalltoetappers.com, or whatever website they wish. This isn't terribly unique either, I can't go around posting whatever crap I want for the company I work for and label it an official company position. I can still say whatever I want, I just can't pretend that I'm somehow representing my company while doing it, and similarly a member of congress, working for Congress and our government as a whole can't state things and represent it as the official position of Congress and our government arbitrarily either.
It wasn't created to target Conservatives, however what the purpose of reviving it appears to be geared towards targeting Conservative talk radio.
Walk with me, if you will. You can get both Conservative and Liberal leaning news from websites, television and newspapers. However, the same cannot be said about radio. It is dominated by Conservative talk radio, and the only Liberal talk radio has survived essentially subsidized by the government.
Any medium of news is subsidized through ad revenue, and ad revenue is based upon the ratings of the shows during which they air. Rush Limbaugh along generates a constant 13.6 million listeners during the course of his 3 hours show. On the other hand, the best ratings I've found for Air America is 1.5 million unique listens over a week. Air America just doesn't generate enough ad revenue to keep it in enough markets, proof being that they had to file for bankruptcy.
Now how does all of this and the fairness doctrine show an attempt to censor conservative talk radio?
Ratings show that liberal talk radio just cannot compete against conservative talk radio. It doesn't get carried, or it gets dismally low ratings. Radio stations that carried shows like Rush's would be required to carry liberal shows (or at least the liberals mentioned) for the same amount of time. Mind you, the Fairness Doctrine applies to stations, not the individuals that produce the shows the stations carry.
Now with the fairness doctrine, a station would almost certainly be forced to carry 3 hours of Air America for every 3 hours of Rush's show in order to make close to the balance required by the act. You won't get Rush letting liberals on his show to defend themselves against his points, so the stations need to adapt as best they can. Here's where the problem comes, since the liberal shows will not draw as much revenue as the conservative ones, it may cost the station enough revenue that they wouldn't be able to operate in the black. Since they're hijacked by the law to reduce their revenue, they either go out of business, or get non-controversial programing that allows them to operate in the black.
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