By Mark Lloyd | July 24, 2007
The Center for American Progress late last month published a widely read report titled “The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio.” That report demonstrated the failure of the supposed “free market” regulation of the U.S. radio industry to address the public-interest needs of listeners. Our analysis revealed that conservative talk radio dominates the airwaves of our country—to the detriment of informed public discourse and the First Amendment.
Only the most misinformed still believe that radio group owners such as Citadel Broadcasting Corp., which refuses to air popular progressive hosts like Ed Shultz, are only concerned about the bottom line. Few would agree that markets such as Philadelphia and Houston are well served with 100 percent conservative talk radio. But that doesn’t mean that the answer to this pervasive imbalance is the Fairness Doctrine.
In our report, we call for ownership rules that we think will create greater local diversity of programming, news, and commentary. And we call for more localism by putting teeth into the licensing rules. But we do not call for a return to the Fairness Doctrine.
Despite what we thought was fairly stark evidence of conservative bias, despite clear proposals to address that bias, Rush Limbaugh and other distortionists insisted that we were calling for a “return” of the Fairness Doctrine. But as we wrote, ...
