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

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

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "tony schinella" <radiotony@attbi.com>
To: "Dan Billings" <billings@suscom-maine.net>; <bri@bostonradio.org>
Sent: Thursday, May 29, 2003 12:03 AM
Subject: Re: Donna gets heard - and seen! (on Nightline, of course)


> Reagan AND the democrats in Congress passed ended the Fairness Doctrine in
> 1987, as well, Clinton AND the republicans in Congress passed the putrid
> Telecom Bill in 1996. Both parties are to blame and most of the people
> complaining about this stuff accurately mention both.

But Nightline didn't.  Reagan was mentioned and the Republican majority on
the FCC was mentioned.  If this show was the only thing that a person had
seen on the issue, which is certainly possible, that person would think that
there is a clear partisan division on this issue.  A real journalist would
have mentioned Clinton if he was going to mention Reagan.

I thought bringing the Fairness Doctrine and the old content rules into the
discussion was silly and needlessly complicated things.  Those rules have
been dead and gone for over 15 years and aren't coming back.  They are also
not directly related to ownership rules.  One can believe in limitations on
the number of stations that a company can old but believe that the company
should have wide latitude on how to program those limited number of
stations.

-- Dan Billings, Bowdoinham, Maine