Limbaugh can't take the truth about Obama tax cuts

[prole]

Even if you believe that the public benefit is best maximized by forcing local network affiliates to broadcast Chomsky lectures or a local bearded activist hectoring people into recycling with hand-puppetts - wasn't their impact in reality limited by the fact that the public wasn't terribly interested in watching the content that the networks were forced to broadcast for the public's benefit?

 

Is there any objective standard that one can appeal to to prove that forcing Ron Jenkins to watch 1/2 hour of the local "Potlucks for Peace Poetry Slam" will benefit him more than watching a half hour of "Lost" and a series of ads for beer, Pop-Tarts and the new Humvee?

 

Given current media trends why exclude youtube, bloggers, and every other website from spamming their users with content that satisfies whatever arbitrary definition of "public interest programming" emerges from the sausage-factory?

 

This addresses exactly none of the issues raised or the remedies prescribed by the media reform advocates cited above. Feel free to keep jumping up and down like a monkey if you want though...

[JayB]

Even if you believe that the public benefit is best maximized by forcing local network affiliates to broadcast Chomsky lectures or a local bearded activist hectoring people into recycling with hand-puppetts - wasn't their impact in reality limited by the fact that the public wasn't terribly interested in watching the content that the networks were forced to broadcast for the public's benefit?

 

There you go again. Straw-dogging it. The general goal, was, and it worked moderately well, to get broad community viewpoints and news out to the community by using the public interest portion of the license provided by said public. Conservative, liberal, and middle all had access. Common sense tells you that some screening would be required to keep nut-jobs off; and yes, that would actually take some vetting and thinking - what a concept.

 

What we have now is one voice - that of money.

 

What evidence is there that it worked moderately well then? Much less that it would do anything other than entice Ron Jenkins to reach for the remote when the guy in yoga pants starts droning on about needle-point as a locus anti-colonial resistance or the hermeneutics of lummi-sticks and ear-candling?

 

None of this works unless you are convinced that there's an objectively "correct" set of opinions that the public should hold and that we should use the law as muscle to nudge the like of Ron Jenkins towards whatever arbitrary standard he's deviated from.

 

The major unstated premise here is that the government has both the right and the duty to concern itself with the opinions that free citizens form and the way they form them, and we should endow it with whatever powers are necessary for it do so.

 

If the public's opinion differs from your own, or some pet cause is being neglected there are a zillion informal methods that you can avail yourself of as a private citizen, alone or in conjunction with a gaggle of like minded folks in order to move it it the "right" direction without bringing the government on board to try to rig the game in your favor.

 

A free press is just that.

 

 

[JayB]

Even if you believe that the public benefit is best maximized by forcing local network affiliates to broadcast Chomsky lectures or a local bearded activist hectoring people into recycling with hand-puppetts - wasn't their impact in reality limited by the fact that the public wasn't terribly interested in watching the content that the networks were forced to broadcast for the public's benefit?

 

Is there any objective standard that one can appeal to to prove that forcing Ron Jenkins to watch 1/2 hour of the local "Potlucks for Peace Poetry Slam" will benefit him more than watching a half hour of "Lost" and a series of ads for beer, Pop-Tarts and the new Humvee?

 

Given current media trends why exclude youtube, bloggers, and every other website from spamming their users with content that satisfies whatever arbitrary definition of "public interest programming" emerges from the sausage-factory?

 

This addresses exactly none of the issues raised or the remedies prescribed by the media reform advocates cited above. Feel free to keep jumping up and down like a monkey if you want though...

 

So you mean I'm one more person that's not paying any attention to what they're saying?

 

So here N = (3.5*10^8) + 1 ?

[j_b]

summary: The market will figure it out.

 

"The Market" in this and every other case is an aggregation of individual's choices and preferences.

 

the choices and preferences of advertisers selling you crap (100's of billions in advertising) and those of media conglomerates selling you media products/services made by a subsidiary, etc.. Anything but the public interest.

 

The counter argument is that the subset of individuals in some centralized body with coercive legal powers would give us a media landscape that's a better match whatever arbitrary standard for media excellence that you happen to believe in.

 

as if the current media landscape wasn't anything other than the arbitrary of the moneyed class.

 

That's certainly possible, but there's no objective standard of merit or utility that you could appeal to to prove that your preferred standard should be granted any more political weight than the next guy's who has a different vision.

 

as if Murdoch, the Koch brothers, and others didn't already decide for us.

 

Even if everyone in the country could agree on what an ideal media would look like, there's no reason to believe that it would be possible to implement it in a politically neutral fashion. Again - I give you Corn Ethanol.

 

we want truly diverse media so that you can get what you want, and others can too. What A concept! Nobody said "perfect" or some other impossible goal you are setting.

[j_b]

The major unstated premise here is that the government has both the right and the duty to concern itself with the opinions that free citizens form and the way they form them, and we should endow it with whatever powers are necessary for it do so.

 

the major premise here is that media and especially news play a specific role in a plural democracy and to do so it has to reflect the needs of everyone, not just the needs of those concerned with making money. Therefore, government is the instrument through which the people make sure that media fulfill those needs. Is that too hard to understand?

[JayB]

The major unstated premise here is that the government has both the right and the duty to concern itself with the opinions that free citizens form and the way they form them, and we should endow it with whatever powers are necessary for it do so.

 

the major premise here is that media and especially news play a specific role in a plural democracy and to do so it has to reflect the needs of everyone, not just the needs of those concerned with making money. Therefore, government is the instrument through which the people make sure that media fulfill those needs. Is that too hard to understand?

 

Yes - simply because there is no such thing as "the needs of everyone." I don't understand the claim because no such thing exists outside of a political partisan's fevered imagination.

 

Not everyone is the same, and whatever needs they may or may not have vis-a-vis the media can't be aggregated into a gargantuan abstraction called "the needs of everyone." Much less one that could ever be legitimately used to justify having the government re-jigger the media to serve it - however "it" is understood or imagined by the folks who want to do the re-jiggering.

 

The other irony here is that if we take your own claims about the power and influence of corporations, the wealthy, etc seriously - one can only conclude that if government were granted the powers you want to endow it with, the Koch brothers and the rest of the cabal would simply use their powers to re-define "the needs of everyone" in whatever way would serve their interests best, and the folks that you want to give a public megaphone to would be even more hosed.

 

 

 

[j_b]

I didn't say all these needs were the same for everybody, in fact, I said the exact opposite, which is the reason we need a diverse media, but you are so eager to spew your libertarian drivel and ramble on about the big bad gov taking your privilege away (not a peep from you about the on-going loss of civil liberties however, fraud) that you had to make up stuff per usual. Some needs are the same for everybody, like the need for truthful and complete news. Doesn't everybody need worthwhile news to make informed decisions in a democracy? or do you expect your pals the Koch brothers to make decisions for the peons?

 

I like your denial of the power of corporations, wealthy, etc ... It shows how completely clueless you are.