I Normally Don't Agree With Him, But...
Al Gore made a speech Wednesday that for the first half was quite accurate, and on the money about the problem with America's media. Here's a link to the whole speech.
I agree with him that it's too bad that TV has overtaken the written press as the way most folks get their news. News can't be truly had in 30 second sound bites and two minute interviews, and too much of the news today on TV is fluff, not news.
Where I disagree with him is that the demise of the Fairness Doctrine and Equal Time laws were bad. The idea of the old fairness doctrine was that if someone was on the air and made political comments, someone from the opposite side had to get equal time.
While it sounds great, it really didn't work. Occasionally, during elections mostly, you got points of view on political issues, other than that, if you didn't go to the library for the congressional record every quarter, you didn't have much of an idea what, other than large things, was going on in DC or your state capital.
The reason liberals don't like the demise of those laws is that they haven't been able to find a personality, and message, that resonates enough to garner a large audience. Air America Radio, by any objective standard has been an abject failure. Very few personalities have come up in the ranks to make splash in a big market or syndication the way Limbaugh and other conservatives have, and it seems to irk them.
I do agree with him that the tone of today's political speech has gotten beyond the point of discourse, and turned too sour. Of course both sides are guilty of this, though you wouldn't know it by reading his speech.
Again, I agree Al, democracy could be in trouble because of the disgression of our news industry, and the tone of rhetoric elsewhere, however, it's a two way street and both sides need to take a break.
I agree with him that it's too bad that TV has overtaken the written press as the way most folks get their news. News can't be truly had in 30 second sound bites and two minute interviews, and too much of the news today on TV is fluff, not news.
Where I disagree with him is that the demise of the Fairness Doctrine and Equal Time laws were bad. The idea of the old fairness doctrine was that if someone was on the air and made political comments, someone from the opposite side had to get equal time.
While it sounds great, it really didn't work. Occasionally, during elections mostly, you got points of view on political issues, other than that, if you didn't go to the library for the congressional record every quarter, you didn't have much of an idea what, other than large things, was going on in DC or your state capital.
The reason liberals don't like the demise of those laws is that they haven't been able to find a personality, and message, that resonates enough to garner a large audience. Air America Radio, by any objective standard has been an abject failure. Very few personalities have come up in the ranks to make splash in a big market or syndication the way Limbaugh and other conservatives have, and it seems to irk them.
I do agree with him that the tone of today's political speech has gotten beyond the point of discourse, and turned too sour. Of course both sides are guilty of this, though you wouldn't know it by reading his speech.
Again, I agree Al, democracy could be in trouble because of the disgression of our news industry, and the tone of rhetoric elsewhere, however, it's a two way street and both sides need to take a break.
posted by Crazy Politico at 6:29 PM
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