ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Thursday, June 28, 2007

Partisan attacks on talk radio should worry all citizens
By Colleen Carroll Campbell

Senator Dianne Feinstein made headlines this week when she proposed to combat
"one-sided" and "explosive" conservative talk radio by "looking at" a revival
of the Fairness Doctrine.

Appearing on "FOX News Sunday," the California Democrat praised the antiquated
government regulation that would force broadcasters of conservative programs to
give equal time to liberal viewpoints and allow government regulators to police
the airwaves for media bias. "I remember when there was a fairness doctrine,"
Feinstein said, "and I think there was much more serious, correct reporting to
people."

Feinstein's nostalgia for the good old days of a mainstream media monopoly is
understandable. Before conservative talk radio, the FOX News channel and the
blogosphere, life was simpler for politicians — particularly liberal ones. The
liberal leanings of media opinion leaders have been documented repeatedly for
nearly three decades, since a groundbreaking study by university professors S.
Robert Lichter and Stanley Rothman found that journalists at national media
outlets lean much further left on political and cultural issues than the public
at large and overwhelmingly support Democratic presidential candidates over
Republican ones.

A more recent confirmation of those findings came this month when an MSNBC
study of 143 journalists who made political contributions since 2004 found that
nearly 90 percent donated to Democrats and liberal causes.

Journalists often insist that their political views do not affect their work.
But a 2005 study by UCLA political scientist Tim Groseclose and economist
Jeffrey Milyo of the University of Missouri- Columbia suggests otherwise. The
researchers compared citations of liberal and conservative think tanks and
policy groups in news reports to similar citations in the speeches of members
of Congress.

Their analysis, which excluded opeds and editorials, found that all but two of
20 major media outlets scored left of the political center defined by the
average lawmaker.

Although such media imbalance rarely troubled Democratic leaders before the
rise of conservative radio and FOX News, now some are clamoring for government
regulation of the media market. Democratic representatives Maurice Hinchey and
Louise Slaughter of New York and Dennis Kucinich of Ohio have backed a revival
of the Fairness Doctrine, as has Vermont Independent Senator Bernie Sanders.
The liberal Center for American Progress released a report last week calling
for increased government regulation to solve the "structural imbalance of
political talk radio."

Backers of such measures seem unconcerned with the chilling effect the Fairness
Doctrine had when last enforced. Many journalists balked at government
regulators arbitrarily deciding what constituted balance and threatening to
rescind broadcast licenses in response to perceived bias. Some journalists
found the requirement to air contrasting viewpoints on every issue so onerous
that they avoided controversial issues altogether.

The "imbalance" in today's talk radio is not a structural problem; it is a
market phenomenon, a matter of supply and demand. When mainstream media outlets
failed to meet the demand for conservative commentary, talk radio filled the
void.

Liberals are free to offer their own fare. So far, their forays into commercial
talk radio — Air America, for example — have flopped, probably because
taxpayer-funded National Public Radio and mainstream media outlets already meet
liberal demand for like-minded commentary.

Samuel Johnson once wrote, "The liberty of the press is a blessing when we are
inclined to write against others and a calamity when we find ourselves
overborne by the multitude of our assailants."

In a democracy that depends on the free exchange of ideas, citizens of all
political persuasions must resist attempts by besieged politicians to muzzle
media critics. Today's target may be Rush Limbaugh, but tomorrow's could be Al
Franken, Arianna Huffington or the staff of Mother Jones magazine. Either way,
America loses.

Colleen Carroll Campbell is an author, television host and St. Louis-based
fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Her website is
www.colleen-campbell.com.