Guest Blogged by Sue Wilson
On August 11, 2009, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, in a unanimous vote, became the first elected body in the United States to stand up to Hate Radio. Their resolution urges “the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to conduct a comprehensive investigation on hate speech in the media, allowing public participation via public hearings, and asks the NTIA [National Telecommunications and Information Administration] to update its 1993 report on the Role of Telecommunications in Hate Crimes.”
For two years, San Francisco’s Hispanic/Latino Anti-Defamation Coalition (HLADC) has been trying to get some traction on this issue. They’ve staged rallies against Michael Savage, worked with the Media Alliance, Common Cause and Broadcast Blues to protest hate radio, and supported the National Hispanic Media Coalition’s campaign to convince the FCC and NTIA to act. But HLADC leader Aurora Grajedas saw she could better effect national change by working with her own city’s board of supervisors. Acting locally is a good lesson for all activists.
Still, there is resistance to any such study, as opponents charge these groups are trying to shut down the first amendment. But let us be clear, Radio Speech is not Free Speech. I will stand by Glenn Beck’s right to stand on the street corner and say illegal immigrants should be made into a new fuel called “Mexinol.” I may not like it, but I stand by his right to say it. But there is a difference between shouting on the street corner and broadcasting all over the country.
Broadcasting pioneers witnessed the power of propaganda with radio Tokyo Rose, so they worked with government on two key broadcast regulations. First, to qualify for a license to broadcast on the public airwaves, stations had to serve the public interest, which became defined as local news, political debates, equal time, and a rule that said no personal attacks. Second, one person could own just 6 radio stations, nationwide. There were a lot of “street corners” in radio.
Today there are almost none…
The 1996 Telecommunications Act changed the law so one person can own unlimited numbers of radio stations nationwide, and up to eight in a single town. It means a handful of businessmen now decide what we all get to hear on our local radio dials. They decide which few musicians get airplay; even Bruce Springsteen can’t stand up to Clear Channel (see that story at www.broadcastblues.tv .) And this tiny group of older, white, conservative men also decides which political message we get to hear on our radio and which we do not. They make sure we can hear “conservatives” in every corner of the country and make sure we do not get to hear moderates or liberals or progressives. (They say only conservative talk gets ratings, but that is not true. You have to see my film for that story.) If they want us to hear hate, they have the power to program hate. Exclusively.
Plus Ronald Reagan did away with requirements for political debates, equal time, and the personal attack rule; those changes made it so much easier to do Hate Radio. It is very hard to attack someone with hate speech and then have to give them equal time to respond; you might have to actually look them in the eye.
So today, Rush Limbaugh promotes violence on 600 radio stations, Glenn Beck promotes Mexinol on 400 more, Michael Savage calls autism a fraud and Latinos criminals on another 400; the list of rightwing hatemongers and their numbers goes on and on. Hate and lies, broadcast with millions of watts of power into every little town and farm, backed by corporations which have a lock on the market and won’t allow any other voice on the air to push back.
It is Radio Speech, and it is not free; it is owned and managed by just a few people who share a political agenda. It clearly does not serve the public interest. (Reagan couldn’t do away with that part of public policy, even though today’s broadcasters pretend that he did.)
And now, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors is calling on the FCC, which enforces public interest standards, to at least study what the Leadership Council on Civil Rights sees as a correlation between hate radio and violent hate crimes. They also call on the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), which advises the President on telecommunications policy, to update their last study of 1993, completed long before the media paradigm shift of 1996.
But even if the FCC and NTIA do quantify that which we already innately understand, (that hate and lies on the radio do incite violence) they have little power to change the situation. It took an Act of Congress to get us into this media mess, and it will take another to get us out of it.
But it will take many more local actions to get their attention.
Bravo, Aurora.
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Sue Wilson is the Emmy Winning Director of the media reform documentary “Broadcast Blues”.
This is the 1st battle to determine the future of our Republic! Orwell is rolling in his grave!
I didn’t know Mike Savage read Bradblog!
I first started seeing this phenomena in the early eighties when, not the corporate pirates, but the conservative Christians began buying upon the airwaves. It seems the corporate pirates took notice and through covert strategies began influencing media regulation to allow their takeover. These corporate pirates are so strategic and so very covertly deceptive. Most common everyday simple American conservatives that I know are basically reasonable people. When these people start expressing extreme intolerance, I can bet with almost certainty what radio and TV they and their pastors are tuning into.
These mostly naive people believe they are getting balanced and honest reporting. The corporate pirates that own the airwaves prey upon the vulnerability, fears, and insecurities of these mostly good and reasonable people. To be fair, the American people have chosen to close their minds and hearts to the truth but they have had a lot of help keeping their minds closed.
Without these fear mongorers I except we would have a much more reasonable electorate. We might even be able to have reasonable discourse that informed and that would provide a bases upon which the electorate could make informed decisions. These corporate pirates expect nothing less of Americans and that is why they manipulate regulations to allow their continued and further take over of the airwaves.
It is discouraging. I’d like to believe in government by the people and for the people. For this, though, we will have to have fair and just media that is committed to truth in reporting and a commitment to presenting all sides of the issues. Where has that liberal biased media been these past many decades?
“Radio speech is not free speech…”
Um…yes, it is.
Furthermore, do any of these talk radio critics have anything to say about the disgusting crap that Randi Rhodes, Mike Malloy, Sam Seder and others have said on-air?
Dear Damail,
Please offer reference and citation. Also, pray, do tell, where did that FCC commissioned study on the effects of consolidation of the media disappear to?
This link should be required for anyone interested in open and honest public debate. It details the purposeful scheme of a handful of captains of industry to put forth a relentless corporate message machine. From the funding of the Heritage Foundation to the enlistment of conservative Christians, the Arkansas project and the shredding of the fairness doctrine which led us into this 1 sided hugely corporate dominated message machine we have today.
http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2004/Republican-Propaganda1sep04.htm
Air America evolved as a direct “response” to the rise of ClearChannel, Viacom, EIB et. al.
These airwaves belong to ALL Americans, not just Christian Americans or conservative Americans. And when facts no longer matter (because they don’t sell…see FOX news supreme court decision), then you’ll start to see the basis of regular American’s frustrations with the constant barrage of fact free propaganda that fills ALL American’s airwaves today.
of course, since you’ve willingly drunk the conservative kool-aid, presenting you with a well researched and thoroughly cited article detailing the demise of honest commentary, I fully expect the standard conservative response form you.
You will attack the messenger and disregard the message.
Know this, however. The continued pollution of American Airwaves with fact free propaganda is coming to an end.
Damail – I’ve never heard anyone on the right give an apology when their facts were wrong as I have on Air America. You’ll never hear those words (I’m sorry I was wrong) from Rush or Glenn or any of the others. It’s always “you didn’t understand me.” No I understood you perfectly when you called the president a racist/Nazi/Communist.
The public airwaves are owned by the public and leased to private interests.
The fact that those private interests have been consolidated into just a few powerful hands suggests that it is approaching a monopoly, which is not free speech.
A return to ownership of 6 total radio stations would seem to be appropriate giving the abuse of our PUBLIC SPECTRUM to promote a lopsided ideological war.
Examples abound on some of the disgusting crap spewed by lefty talkers. Randi Rhodes said President Bush should be taken out on a fishing boat and asassinated, just like Fredo in “The Godfather, Part II”. (Ace of Spades and Cynical Nation both have that audio archived on their websites.
Mike Malloy has said thus: “The founder of the Blogs For Bush website should get the crap kicked out of him, Bush administration members should be drowned, Rush Limbaugh should choke on his own throat fat, Glenn Beck should kill himself on live TV…” and on and on. (Radio Equalizer has audio for all of these examples).
Sam Seder once called Brit Hume “a scumbag who was partially responsible for his own son’s suicide”.
And they have never apologized for these comments.
Further: I have never called President Obama a racist/Nazi.communist. Don’t put words in my mouth.
Damail, dear, here’s something else Malloy said….
I call Bullshit on the Randi Rhodes comment.
http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source=hp&q=Randi+Rhodes+%22President+Bush+should+be+taken+out+on+a+fishing+boat%22&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&aqi=&fp=c9fe100d9e542c1e
Only 1 reference to this phrase across the entire internet. That being the one you just made in this thread.
As for Mike Malloy, the only reference across the whole internet about the Mike Malloy accusations comes from someone named “Scott at OpEd news, who, despite repeated requests for citation, has never provided links to documentation of this statement.
On the other hand, Just google search Malkin, Limbaugh, Beck, O’Reilly, Coulter, Savage et al and “hate speech” and you get thousands of links all well cited and documented.
baseless bullshit compared to the constant stream of anger and hate spewing forth from the Drudge legions.
Actually, Dan, I heard Malloy saying Beck, being suicidal, should kill himself, and that he wanted him to do it on his tv show. He was quite adamant about it. And… one can hardly blame him… and, he certainly wasn’t suggesting anyone else kill him… and he was saying it in direct response to repeated playbacks of Beck’s musings on killing Michael Moore… whether to hire someone or do it himself… so… we get the distinctions, but Damail is not big on the finer points or getting a full grasp of… well… facts…..
“I call bullshit on the Randi Rhodes comment…”
You just lost another round.
http://www.cynicalnation.com/2004/05/air_america_ugliness.html
And I already told you about Maloney’s website:
http://www.radioequalizer.blogspot.com
Maloney has documented all of Malloy’s vile spewings.
I have the facts. I won. You lost.
Oh, fer crapsakes, Damail! “Neener-neener”? Are you seven? We don’t want to waste our time with little children here. Could you please withhold such childish outbursts? Please? This isn’t a game of kickball! It’s our country we’re talking about here!
My argument is not about what Mike Malloy says, or Michael Savage, or anyone else. 90 percent of commercial radio is conservative, and they drive a corporate right wing agenda. You can drive through dozens of states and never hear Randi Rhodes or Ed Schultz or Mike Malloy. But guaranteed you will hear Limbaugh and Hannity and Savage, even if progressives or liberals get proven better ratings. When this juggernaut breaks up and guys like Brad Friedman get their voices heard on the radio, radio speech will be free. For now, it is owned.
In case you haven’t heard, Randi is now being syndicated by Premiere radio Network – the same company that syndicates Rush and Hannity. So how does she fit into that “corporate right-wing agenda”?
And a note to Agent 99: You couldn’t refute what I just documented, so now the acting-like-a-little-kid canard pops up. That’s pretty lame.
If you go back and look, you will see I did not refute you, but even bore witness to your allegation against Malloy. And the acting-like-a-little-kid thing was no canard!
…is about as juvenile a thing to say as it gets.
Clarification, then: My comment was aimed mostly at Dan, claiming that Randi never uttered her kill-Bush comment. However, standing up for Malloy’s Beck comment is pretty incomprehensible. Beck’s comment about Michael Moore sounded pretty nasty, but that doesn’t justify Malloy’s response.
I love Mike Malloy, and I was shocked to hear Beck’s bit about killing Moore, which was seriously, seriously, seriously sick… and just precisely the kind of stuff to inspire lunatics like the guy who murdered Dr. Tiller. So I took Mike’s nasty commentary, which if you listen was extremely carefully worded, as a means of exposition of just HOW ugly Beck’s shtick really was. Yes, Mike regularly says stuff like, “Have I mentioned how much I hate these guys?” And he rants like a god of discontent, but he is very clearly a voice for peace and good fellowship on earth. That’s unmistakable if you listen to him even just once in a while.
He was very careful to make it clear that if Beck really is suicidal that he wanted him to off himself on his tv show. He was saying, in other words, that he’d like to see on tv the already suicidal someone who is broadcasting this kind of completely beyond the pale reprehensible stuff kill himself… entirely different from wondering over the airwaves if you should hire someone to kill a guy or if you could do it yourself, and then going to the extreme of describing how you’d like to squeeze the life out of him… and maybe it’s immaterial to the argument that the victim in question has broken his butt over the years to put out highly valuable documentaries for his fellow Americans… for hard-working Americans who are being shit upon by big corporations and our own government… Malloy was driving it home just how reprehensible Beck’s piece was, just in case anybody should skip right over it and let it keep up….
I was extremely uncomfortable listening to that, but I understood it and I don’t think even crazy people could take that to mean they should go out and murder shock jocks. I think he was helping his listeners understand just how dangerous this stuff has become.
I can’t address your allegations about the other liberal talkers because I didn’t hear them and don’t want to listen. I just know that the right has gone too far, way too far, over the line with this stuff. Could be some on the left are giving it back now, but that only proves how important it is for it to stop… on all sides.
We all live under the same [shredded] Constitution. We all submit to the same laws. We all love our country. We have to stop fighting each other so we can fight the people responsible for all these awful things going on right now.
It’s obscene that people are paid huge salaries to whip people into a frenzy over lies, for political ends that screw the people they’ve whipped up. It’s wrong. It’s un-American. It’s bringing us all down.
It’s got to stop.
The other disgusting, filthy comments by Malloy are being ignored by you…”the founder of the Blogs For Bush website should get the crap kicked out of him…Bush administration members should be drowned…Rush Limbaugh should choke on his own throat fat…”
I forgot to mention two others – “I used to have violent fantasies about Scott McClellan…now I have transferred these fantasies to Dana Perrino…” Also – “Sarah Palin is a ho…” And one more – “Matt Drudge should be hung by his entrails…”
I have listened to Malloy – and then I had to take a shower afterwards. He is not a voice for peace and fellowship. His show is toxic scum. Period.
Excusing the comments of Malloy, Rhodes and others (or singing the praises of them, as you just did) while tearing into Beck and the other right-wingers is total hypocrisy.
I call bullshit on the Malloy comment:
Damail said that Malloy said: “Glenn Beck should kill himself on live TV” Glenn Beck himself said that, and Malloy was just saying: “Well, go ahead, then!”
Just like that John guy accused that “teabagger” was offensive, when the teabaggers and FOX “news” started calling them “teabaggers”, without even knowing what it meant.
Just like bush invited Colbert to speak at the White House correspondence dinner, probably thinking he was actually a rightwing talk show host.
And QUANTITY, Damail, QUANTITY! You NEVER address that!
the QUANTITY of rightwing hate speech on the radio is like an OCEAN vs. a drop in the bucket, because rightwingers dominate the AM radio.
Damail: no one (for all intents and purposes) knows who Mike Malloy is. EVERYONE knows who Rush Limbaugh is. BAAAAAD comparison, Damail. Very poor.
You guys stink at arguing!
Danny, I’m sure even the proud teabaggers are sorry to have picked such an unfortunate name, and I bet most of them were appalled to find out there was already a porn euphemism for it. I think John’s point was a good one, even if he didn’t know that’s what they called themselves.
Damail’s point is even sound, except insofar as he tries to draw some equivalences that aren’t there, and some that may actually be there for all I know.
The whole bit about “hate speech” is that it is a slippery slope, and WHO gets to call it hate? And who gets to say hate itself is criminal when yer just spewing it out your mouth? Obviously, there’s a problem… a BIG problem… but the root of this one is the kind of money plutocrats will pay talkers to hypnotize bubbas, turn the airwaves into a sea of polemic and propaganda that helps them achieve their ends.
So it’s not the bubbas, and not the shits who get paid truckloads to spew this stuff. It’s the people doing the paying.
All of us, on both sides, should be fighting those people, not each other.
“I call bullshit on the Randi Rhodes comment…I call bullshit on the Mike Malloy comment…”
And people are going to claim that I’m the one exhibiting “neener-neener childish outbursts”?
Thanks for the comedy.
You’re right, Damail. I only griped about your childishness because I agree more with the other guys, even though I think you have a point.
So.
I’m sorry. That was hypocritical of me.
Re Mike Malloy & Randi Rhodes vs. Limbaugh, Beck et al… Does anyone disagree that hateful speech –such as referring to women as ‘ho’s” or “feminazis,” for example — should be opposed no matter who is doing it? Personally, I can’t support Don Imus calling the Rutgers’ women’s basketball team ‘ho’s’ — but I also can’t support Randi calling Hillary Clinton a ‘ho.’
what the hell is this bullshit blog? It sounds like some mentally ill lefty is having a snivel fest.
Hate hate haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate, oh, the hate hate hate! Oh, Rush Limbaugh says “feminazi,” oh, the truama this inflicts on my shriveled little self.
Jesus Christ, get a life, you sorry ass loser. If you don’t like it, turn off the radio, dipshit.
just a note to the flaming paranoids … small business, radio stations, present programs that appeal to *their* audience and appeal to *their* advertisers (who pay for the content & audience).
federal distortions are an anathema. federal distortions reek of lord of the flies, animal farm, 1984 and gullivers travels. after teh bible, these intellectual tomes will be integrated or humanity will fail as a darwinian-ordered species.
this is so obvious that i am astounded at the ignorance profligated here. i really am. so sad is the day.
You have the right to change the channel! You left wing marxist will stop at nothing to take away free thought, free speech just to get free health care. If you shut down radio then you control what people hear, oh wait that is just what they are doing in Hugo Chavez country, media run outlets to dictate and control the population as slaves who think they are free. Just as you have a right to post this we have a right to respond. Really you only had one thing right in your post and that was it took an act of congress to give us back our speech, thank you Ronald Regan for that.