Should the government regulate talk radio ?

Question

Should congress control talk radio to make it fair and balanced by only allowing progressive programming ?

Answer 1

How about........ NO!!! The left is all in favor of free speech until it comes to Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Michael Savage etc. They have Air America, who's fault is it that no one wants to listen to it? Could it be the message?

Answer 2

If the government regulates talk radio who is going to determine what is fair and balanced? Are we going to hire government censors who decide what is acceptable based upon the recommendations of some panel that was put together by a group of politicians? Wouldnt that in fact allow the party in power through their political appointees to censor the voices of their opponents on the airwaves. Talk radio is currently sensored by the best and most fair minded censors that we could have, the american people. If the people find the speech of a group objectionable, they will tune to another station and that company will lose market share and income from advertising. They will then be compelled by market forces to replace that host with someone that the public is interested in hearing. That is why we dont have extremist groups such as the Nazi's or Louis Farrakan blasting out of our radios 24/7. All adding the government into the mix will do is to let elements of the government tell us what we can and cannot hear in our media. If you want to curtail your right to free speech, thats a good way to start. Then we can go into your schools, homes and churches and let government censors tell us what we should and should not say or hear in those environments. Lets be fair all around, on sunday your churches sermons could be balanced with satanic hymms. An extreme example I grant you, but do we really want to start down that road?

Answer 3

Of course not. That would just create a new problem.

The real problem is that conservative talk-radio is one-sided propaganda driven by sponsorship and profit generation.

A perfect example is the constant mis-statements about Global Warming. They even attempted to influence public opinion about the Sarbanes-Oxley accounting rules...as if any talk-radio host has a clue about accounting rules. Conservative talk-radio gives big businesses and political conservatives the ability to influence the public with mis-information and propaganda while acting like it's just a talk show host's opinion. Notice that conservative talk-show hosts almost never interview experts...they just spout out their own opinion on subjects that they know little about.

More liberal talk-show hosts do the opposite. They tend to constantly interview experts. Unfortunately, they tend to interview liberal experts and ask liberal questions. So often it is no better.

I do find this to be troubling, but I don't think that the current proposals are the proper solution.\

A better approach would be to have talk-show hosts disclose if they have any sponsorship or are influenced in any way by a significant party when discussing an issue. For instance, when CNBC talks about GE stock, they always mentioned that it was their parent company. Talk show hosts should have to disclose any relationships with parties who are affected by the topic of conversation. Thus, if Exxon is paying Rush Limbaugh $2million to downplay Global Warming, he should have to disclose it. As well, the related party should be responsible for his/her statements as if the talk-show host is an agent for that company.

Answer 4

NO It is called free market. If the people want to listen to it it will be heard if not it will go off air. Air America? Shut down started up with new people, same crap.

Answer 5

The government should not regulate it.....that is a clear violation of the 1st amendment....

But I sure as heck wish that people would stop listening to those folks....I think they bear SO much responsibility for the degradation of civility in our society. They teach people that you need not respect or even consider those with opposing viewpoints....you should ridicule them and dismiss them.....

Talk radio is killing us......STOP LISTENING!

Answer 6

freedom of speech is some abstract concept in this country, what we really mean is you can express your opinion freely as long as i agree with it. eversince 9/11 and patriot act, we really do not have any real freedoms anymore due to our governments knee jerk reaction to the situation and 24 hour surveillance on all of us, really the terrorists won if you ask me.

Answer 7

They already do.