The Fairness Doctrine - Balancing High Ratings With Low Ratings

Liberals and Democrats are furious that people like Rush Limbaugh are allowed to speak. They have tried for years to shut them up, from painting them as racists or fascists or drug addicts to downplaying their impact at every opportunity.

Now Democrats are eager to bring back the “Fairness Doctrine”, requiring that any radio station that features a conservative radio show that people listen to must also feature a liberal radio show that people do not listen to. The Fairness Doctrine, in addition to being unenforceable, is designed to get conservatives off the air.

The law of course will not apply to television news, newspapers, college campuses, public schools, or movie studios, all of which are more dominated by liberals than talk radio is by conservatives. The goal of the Fairness Doctrine is anything but fairness.

Rush Limbaugh first appeared on the Philadelphia radio dial on 96.5 FM WWDB. WWDB had existed for years as a talk radio station, featuring views from all sides. But the conservatives were on late in the evening, while the liberals and just outright obnoxious screamers like Irv Homer were on at prime time.

Rush’s time slot on WWDB was noon to 3PM, as it still is today. Back then WWDB insisted on “balancing” his program with the likes of Susan Bray before and Irv Homer after his show, and during Rush’s show, WWDB would run commercials saying “for a different point of view, listen to (someone no one was listening to)”. It clearly pained them to carry Rush Limbaugh, but liberals never turn away the money.

WWDB is no more. Susan Bray, Irv Homer, and everyone else I could think of on WWDB is no longer employed in Philadelphia radio as far as I know…and even if they are, if I don’t know about it, they’re not setting the city on fire wherever they are.

Rush, on the other hand, immediately found a new home on the Philadelphia radio dial, at WPHT 1210-AM. WPHT hasn’t bothered to try and balance him, also carrying Michael Smerconish (a middle-of-the-road local host who leans conservative), Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, and Bill O’Reilly. After Rush, Hannity is the second most listened-to radio show in the country. Beck is third.

There have no doubt been similar instances in radio stations across the country. Conservative talk radio sells not because it is ideologically to the right by itself, but because it is the only institution of information dissemination—with the possible exception of the Internet—that isn’t forcibly driven ideologically to the left. Conservative talk radio succeeds largely because it is the only counterpoint to an enormous liberal echo chamber that includes almost every nightly newscast and nearly every newspaper in America.

There is nothing currently stopping liberals from participating in talk radio, and heaven knows they have tried. Their only real outlet is NPR, which is forced onto, and paid for by, the taxpaying public no matter how low their ratings. Air America, the liberal radio venture, was given more press and financial backing than all of the conservatives in the history of radio combined, and it was one of the biggest failures in the history of media. The only thing stopping liberals from succeeding in radio is that damned free market that they hate. They don’t sell, period.

It is telling that when liberals are in an arena where they don’t hold a monopoly, they cannot hold an audience worth a squat. Ultimately what that should betray is that Americans have no taste for liberalism. So how, one wonders, do Democrats win elections?

There are a multitude of reasons, and Republicans of late do not have excuses. But one very big one is the media mouthpiece that Democrats have. Remember that Bill Clinton’s crimes were far worse than Richard Nixon’s. It was the power of the media that ousted Nixon and saved Clinton. In 2004, Katie Couric devoted three whole “Today” shows to Michael Moore and his pathologically deceptive and cowardly movie, in the interest of defeating President Bush. The media is currently breaking its back laughably trying to make a radical left-wing America hater like Barack Obama into a palatable uniter.

The media must sell liberalism by passing it off as objective journalism, more evidence of just how unpopular liberalism really is.

Only talk radio stands in their way. And liberals can’t stand it…and once again, they show their maturity level, not by competing, but by whining that it isn’t fair.