The Fairness Doctrine

“In Venezuela, with Chavez, you really had an incredible revolution — democratic revolution — to begin to put in place things that were going to have impact on the people of Venezuela. The property owners and the folks who were then controlling the media in Venezuela rebelled — worked, frankly, with folks here in the US government — worked to oust him. He came back and had another revolution, and Chavez then started to take the media very seriously in his country.”

Words of a Chavez supporter? Commentary by pro-Chavez talk radio host in Venezuela? Not really.

They are comments by Obama’s new “Diversity Czar,” Mark Lloyd. Mark Lloyd, newly appointed Chief Diversity Officer of the Federal Communications Commission, has called for making private broadcasting companies pay licensing fees equal to their total operating costs to allow public broadcasting outlets to spend the same on their operations as the private companies do.

Huh? Licensing fees equal to their total operating costs? That’s a 100% charge to fund public broadcasting. Who the heck pays 100% of operating costs to the government to fund a competitive corporation in our society? WIAA in Interlochen would benefit, not for broadcasting classical music, but for providing more of public broadcasting. So would CMU’s public broadcasting station in Mt. Pleasant. That is if they were dumb enough to see what’s really going on here: Silence conservative talk radio.

Lloyd presented the idea in his 2006 book, “Prologue to a Farce: Communications and Democracy in America,” published by the University of Illinois Press.

Lloyd’s hope is to dramatically upgrade and revamp the Corporation for Public Broadcasting through new funding drawn from private broadcasters.

The CPB is a non-profit entity that was created by Congress and that currently receives hundreds of millions of dollars in federal subsidies each year. In fiscal 2009, it is receiving an appropriation of $400 million.

“The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) must be reformed along democratic lines and funded on a substantial level,” Lloyd wrote in his book.

“Federal and regional broadcast operations and local stations should be funded at levels commensurate with or above those spending levels at which commercial operations are funded,” Lloyd wrote. “This funding should come from license fees charged to commercial broadcasters. Funding should not come from congressional appropriations. Sponsorship should be prohibited at all public broadcasters.”

Along with this money, Lloyd would regulate much of the programming on these stations to make sure they focused on “diverse views” and government activities.

“Local public broadcasters and regional and national communications operations should be required to encourage and broadcast diverse views and programs,” wrote Lloyd. “These programs should include coverage of all local, state and federal government meetings, as well as daily news and public issues programming.

“In addition, educational programs for children and adults, and diverse, independent personal and cultural expression should be encouraged,” he wrote.

Hey, I’m all for fairness in politics, news reporting, and the like. This garbage is coming from the guy who now has power to make his version of “diversity” stick.

A famous leader, whose name begins with “S” and who lived in Russia, once said ““Death solves all problems - no man, no problem.”

If you, as a liberal who believes in the radical agenda our president is laying out for this country, wanted to promote that agenda…the death of conservative talk radio would be one more step in state-run domination of the news…all in the name of “fairness and diversity.” How hypocritical and how dangerous, as the advisors to Obama seek to control one more media outlet.