Another market failure

Representative Maurice D. Hinchey, a Democrat from New York, is planning to reintroduce the Media Ownership Reform Act, which includes a provision for a return to the "Fairness Doctrine."   Until it was repealed in 1987 for violating the First Amendment, the "Fairness Doctrine" required that broadcasters give equal time to opposing political views.  And what propels us back to the fairness doctrine?

In a report titled "The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio," the Center for American Progress concluded that 91 percent of weekday talk radio is conservative, compared with liberal content at 9 percent. The group, which said it analyzed 257 news and talk stations owned by the five biggest radio broadcasters, calls for stricter media-ownership limits and public-interest requirements.

"There is little free speech or free choice in a market system that pushes out one-sided information 90 percent of the time on the radio," said John Halpin, a senior fellow at the center. "Radio stations are licensed to operate in the public interest. Promoting one point of view over all others does not meet any reasonable public-interest standard."

Wasn't Air America supposed to fix all that, provide the alternative?  Yes, I believe it was, but it didn't quite work out.  They couldn't get anybody to listen to them, and for a radio network that's a big problem.  Unfortunately, audience reluctance to listen to the liberal drivel coming out of Air America is being translated to "little free speech or free choice."  It smacks of desperation.