Lobbying for Repression

The so called Center for American Progress and Free Press has published a report titled The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio. The full report, which can be read here, in pdf format, is 40 pages long, and rather tedious reading, though it does have lovely graphs and appendices.

The report laments the number of conservative talk shows and the amount of air time they receive in comparison to so called “progressive radio.” To wit,

Our analysis in the spring of 2007 of the 257 news/talk stations owned by the top five commercial station owners reveals that 91 percent of the total weekday talk radio programming is conservative, and 9 percent is progressive.

Each weekday, 2,570 hours and 15 minutes of conservative talk are broadcast on these stations compared to 254 hours of progressive talk—10 times as much conservative talk as progressive talk.

A separate analysis of all of the news/talk stations in the top 10 radio markets reveals that 76 percent of the programming in these markets is conservative and 24 percent is progressive, although programming is more balanced in markets such as New York and Chicago.

Naturally, the center, which bills itself as “progressive” and in favor of a “free press,” believes that this disparity should be made more equal, not through freedom of the airwaves, but by legislation of the airwaves.

Yeah, make a new law, that’ll fix those damn successful conservative talk show operators.  How does that promote “free press?”

Interestingly enough, Matt Drudge provides a link to an audio clip wherein Senator James Inhofe claims he overhead Clinton and Pelosi colluding to limit conservative talk radio through legislation, also.

This article, noting the center’s report, has an interesting comment thread to read regarding this, also.

Legislation does not promote freedom, it impedes it.

Posted by on 06/22 at 06:08 AM

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