Fake Right, Thrust Left
By Horace Cooper
July 4, 2007
Late last month the Center for the American Progress released a report entitled "the Structural Imbalance of Talk Radio." The study purportedly provides a serious analysis of the partisan programming that exists on talk radio and concludes that it is overwhelming right of center. Notwithstanding the pseudo-scientific nature of this report, it's clearly more pseudo than science.
To start with the study rests on an amazingly loose definition of what constitutes left and what constitutes right leaning programming. It doesn't include any of the programming broadcast nationwide by National Public Radio and then places in the category of right leaning programming almost any format that doesn't embrace a hard left agenda. As a result -- stations in LA, NYC and San Francisco were listed as having little to no "progressive" formats. Tellingly the study acknowledges that "only hosts with evident and near- indisputable leanings were categorized." This resulted in almost all programming not promoting Che Gueverra being categorized as "right of center."
But the flaws don't stop there. Although this study fails to accurately identify programming -- it is indisputable that talk radio skews right -- it's greatest failing is its implication that the skew itself is an issue which needs a legislative solution. Moreover, this study's recommendations reject two fundamentals of the American system -- free speech and free markets.
It is axiomatic that under the First Amendment the federal government should not make assessments of the political content of talk radio or of any news program and they clearly shouldn't link keeping your license to those assessments. Setting aside questions about indecency, obscenity or hate speech, the type of programming criticized in the CAP study is exactly the type of activity that the First Amendment exists to protect.
In the view of CAP, the federal government should legitimately be concerned because "too much time" is being spent discussing tax relief, school prayer, or gun owner rights? As an aside, on the same day that the CAP report was issued, MSNBC released a news story covering the political contributions of the mainstream media It was no surprise that the news report indicated that editors, producers and news anchors lean to the left and give accordingly -- almost 9 to 1 according to the report. And frankly it was actually quite refreshing to see representatives of the liberal media put up their own money to back the leftwing causes they advocate for a change. The irony is that notwithstanding this overwhelming bias in political contributions, no centrists or people on the right advocated legislation to restrict the political contributions of the news media. Americans recognized that our Bill of Rights explicitly provides a wide zone of freedom for this type of conduct even if it is overwhelmingly biased to the left.
On the other hand, the CAP study not only identifies the talk radio programming which discusses current events and public policy disputes from a conservative perspective as a problem, it then goes forward and offers solutions that are even more troubling.
>> Continued -- Page 1 2
| 
