Re: Donna gets heard - and seen! (on Nightline, of course)

["Dan Billings" <billings@suscom-maine.net>]

I hope Donna didn't reorganize her whole day so Nightline could get that 10
second clip.

Koppel in his opening invoked the name of President Reagan.  In effect
blaming him for the state of things.  Reagan did push for the end of the
so-called Fairness Doctrine and other content regulations but the none of
the changes in the ownership rules happened on his watch.  The rule changes
allowing for radio duopolies happened under the First President Bush and
President Clinton signed the 1996 Act.  Of course, none of that was
discussed.  It is easier to tell a simply story of Republicans being
responsible for all the changes.

They also dug out the Minot, North Dakota story to illustrate the problem,
which Scott nicely shows to have little to do with the issue at all.

Diller was arguing that the networks should not own all the shows that they
show on the network.  He would like to see more independent producers
produced shows for the networks.  Do any of the proposed changes have
anything to do with that issue?

All I can conclude is that Nightline was trying to illustrate what to be
afraid of with the way they covered the story.

-- Dan Billings, Bowdoinham, Maine