Fairness Doctrine as Credibility Test

I've been convinced for a while now that the Fairness Doctrine, a potential legislative act with designs to curtail conservative radio and television, will never come to pass. Very powerful, rich entities like the Rupert Murdoch group and Clear Channel Communications and others would make mincemeat of it. For the Democrats in Congress to try to pass something like that would be like the Republicans under Bush trying to pass tort reform. The law lobby, like the communications industry, is far too powerful to be messed with.

But since outrage is the mother's milk of right and left-wing talk show hosts, I am glad to occasionally see an issue that helps sort out those who are outraged for the sake of ratings and those who are outraged with good reason. It's not perfect, since it could be that those who are outraged for the sake of ratings are simply misreading the situation, but it still hurts their credibility in the long run.

And so a "thumbs up" to Al Kresta and Bill O'Reilly and a "thumbs down" to Bill Cunningham and Glen Beck. Kresta and O'Reilly don't take the Fariness Doctrine seriously & know that crying wolf too many times only damages credibility, while Beck and Cunningham continue to sound the alarm.