Broadcasting:
The Fairness Doctrine

The old Fairness doctrine was in place throughout my career in broadcasting. I hated it worse than anything I ever encountered as a broadcaster. It totally robbed us of the ability to speak out on matters we believed to be politically important.

Broadcast news people are often the best informed segment of our population. How often have you heard someone ask, "Did you hear the news report about..... ". I once could reply, "Hear it? I read it this morning at 6:00 and at 6:30 and at 7:00, ..."

Unlike a print reporter who may have spent most of their day honing a single story, the broadcast news man reads all the stories, from many sources, over and over.

So, doesn't it follow that they would be well equipped to comment on the news? Doesn't matter. If they did comment, they were then beholden to invite some dummy to come on their air and comment with an opposing view. I know many will lawyerly argue that that was not the exact requirement of the rule. But lawyerly opinions are a costly option out of reach of many small broadcasters. If time and money prevent you from getting a reliable legal opinion, you are restricted to a single course of action: Just forget the whole thing. You could not risk jeopardizing your license or even exposing your station to the need to hire the lawyers you could not afford in the first place.

The Unfairness Doctrine.

In the first place, who ever came up with the idea that the airwaves belong to the people? I was part of a group that sought to build a new radio station. We spent thousands of dollars over seven years, trying to get a license. Our application appeared to portend a profitable operation, so another group decided to ask the FCC for a licence in the same place, same frequency, same power. Being first didn't matter. The FCC scheduled a "Comparative Hearing", an opportunity for a handfull of dumb bureaucrats to decide which applicant would best serve the interest of the public residing within the coverage area of the proposed facility.

In such cases, an "Examiner" is appointed to conduct the hearing. In our case, the chosen idiot would ask a question like "How many other radio stations serve this area?" To answer that question required that each applicant employ a professional engineer to do a detailed study to plot the coverage area of every radio station which reached this particular swatch of geography. I no longer remember exactly how many thousands of dollars that cost. To my knowledge, the Examiner never looked at the results

In preparing our application, I was required to submit a personal biography. I wrote out a page, briefly outlining my broadcast experience. Our Washington law firm glanced at it and smiled. "They don't read these things", they told me, "they weigh them." Go back and write everything you can think of that may conceivably contribute to your experience as a broadcaster. Hm, I thought. I once stood on the sidewalk and watched General Dwight Eisenhower ride by in a victory parade held for him at the end of World War II. Does that qualify as a close association with the Supreme Allied Commander and president-to- be?

Well, the FCC granted the license to the other applicant. I read their reasons and said, "Wait a minute.... you overlooked... " The FCC agreed, withdrew the license from the other applicant and threw the entire matter back into hearing. Our attorneys, weary of seeing us squander our meager fortunes, told us to merge with the other applicant. We did, which meant everyone's interest was halved.

To finish the story, we put the station on the air and it was an instant success. But, four months after the station began broadcasting, Washington closed the Air Force Base in our city and the local economy tanked. We struggled for seven more years but never made another dime of profit. Broke and exhausted, we sold the station for about the cost of the land where the transmitter was built, and left town. Fourteen years, down the tubes.

But, I digress. While we were on the air, we built a fabulous news reporting machine. Our regular staff, largely eager, young, unmarried men and women, worked countless overtime hours without pay, for the sheer joy of accomplishing something excellent in broadcasting.

We used to say that if you hear sirens in this community, turn on your radio. Within minutes you would know why and to where the emergency vehicles were responding.

This was the Viet Nam era. At one point a group of Southeast Asian journalists were brought through our city while on a U.S. tour. I was privileged to spend several hours in serious discussion with an editor from a Saigon newspaper, learning his perspective of the war, why it was important for the U.S. to help the South Viet Namese. But if I wanted to talk about it, I would have to invite a local war protestor to present an opposing view.

I attended every political rally in our area for three major elections. I had interviewed every candidate for every state or local office, and every Congressional race. I had a wealth of information about the candidates and the issues. But if I wanted to broadcast commentary, I would have to contact each opposing campaign and offer a chance to rebut.

If, indeed, some modern politician speaks of reviving the Fairness Doctrine - in any form - please oppose it. Or you will forever end the ability of broadcasters to share their knowledge in the discussion of any serious issue.

In May of 1945, I was employed by the Day & Night Manufacturing Company in Azusa, CA. I worked in the paint department where we were making rocket parts for the U.S. Navy. Midday on May 7, the factory whistle blew and we were instructed to assemble at the front of the plant.

Once there, we were informed that our enemies in Europe had accepted surrender terms. The war in Europe was over. V-E Day! I was a 16-year-old, living far from family and friends, so I was not involved in any big celebration. It was celebration enough to know that the Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler was no more.


By August of that same year, I was back in my home town of Kansas City. We had been informed that the unconditional surrender of the Japanese was imminent. When the announcement came on the afternoon of August 15, most businesses closed and massive numbers of people poured into the streets in joyous celebration. V-J Day! Swaying back and forth with the crowd, singing patriotic songs and kissing girls, the celebration contnued far into the evening. When it was over, I was smeared in lipstick from ear to ear. My white shirt was red from shoulder to shoulder.


Two and one half months later I celebrated my 17th birthday and enlisted in the Army.


After the Army I went back to school and then began my career in broadcasting. On June 25, 1950, I was on the air at WLDY Radio, in Ladysmith, WI, when I heard the AP teletype machine ring five bells - the signal for a news bulletin. I read the bulletin on the air: "North Korean forces have crossed the 38th parallel, invading South Korean territory."


Our forces were quickly pushed southward, almost into the sea, when the brilliance of General Douglas MacArthur saved the day. With his newly dispatched reinforcements, the North Koreans were quickly pushed north to the Chinese border. Then the Chinese joined the war. MacArthur wanted to carry the war back to them, but Truman blinked, fired MacArthur, and let the Chinese/North Korean forces push back south to the 38th parallel.


The presidential election of 1952 hinged on discontent with the Truman administration's inability to end the war. Dwight Eisenhower was elected and his first official act was to travel to Korea and consult the field commanders of the military over which he had been chosen Commander in Chief.


Eisenhower negotiated a cease fire and the establishment of a DMZ - a demilitarized zone along the 38th parallel, which the opposing armies agreed not to cross. They have, however, glared at each other across that zone for 55 years. The Korean War never really ended. But then, how can you end a war which was never declared? The Korean Conflict, as it was more accurately known, was a "police action". Never mind that 36,916 Americans died.


The Viet Nam War really began in 1954 when the French engaged in the battle of Dien Bien Phu. After years of advising, equipping and supporting the South Vietnamese, the United States finally became fully engaged in the war. America's military won that war on the battlefield. The U.S. government lost to the anti-war movement at home. In May of 1975, our military was ordered to cut and run, insuring that the 58,193 American dead had died in vain. There was no victory celebration at the end of the Viet Nam War.


The Gulf War to drive Iraqis out of Kuwait ended so quickly that most Americans never realized we were in a war, and since much of America was still anti-military, that victory was not widely celebrated.


Then came the Iraq War. A new kind of war in which the real enemy was not the Iraq army, which America defeated in a blink. The enemy turned out to be an almost unending string of murderous Islamic thugs who poured into Iraq for the sport of killing a few thousand Americans and tens of thousands - perhaps hundreds of thousands - of innocent Iraqi civilians.


Today, November 22, the Iraqi Parliament votes on a security pact with the United States which will pave the way for American Forces to leave their nation. A democratic Iraq will assume responsibility for its own defense.

The dangerous regime of Saddam Hussein is gone. 28 million Iraqi people now live in freedom. A fledgling democracy exists in the heart of the Middle East. It is time to recognize that the Iraq War is won.


Today, I am proud to join thousands of like minded Americans in declaring that today, November 22, 2008, is VI-Day: Victory In Iraq Day! Our thanks to America's incredible military which made this joyful day possible.

Prop 8 - another thought

In a democratic society there are an abundance of rules, regulations, laws that grant protection and privilege, prohibition and punishment. These rules derive from a majority of the people, either directly by referendum or by the elected representatives of the people, using powers granted by the majority.

Not all these rules are good. The majority is not always right. Ayn Rand once asked, "What if the majority wants you killed? Is that all right?"

In California, there arose a movement to require that the civil union called marriage, with its various rights and privileges, be bestowed only in the case of one man marrying one woman. The question was put to the ballot and the majority approved. Then, the courts examined the question and said it violated a more supreme law, the constitution.

The proponents managed to remake the question into one of amending that supreme law. They achieved a referendum on a constitutional amendment, which passed. The concern is for what happened next.

At this point, let me say that I have had no horse in this race. No one has convinced me that same sex marriage is a bad thing. The latest protest is that children raised without traditional man/woman parents somehow grow up with more and different problems. Again, I am not yet convinced.

When a rule is passed that you perceive to be a detriment to your well being, it is natural that you would like to see the rule changed or discarded. So what do you do?

You can attempt to persuade the proponents of the rule that it should change. Powers of persuasion can be dramatic if your appeal is made to people's sense of fairness and justice, and if you can convince them that they will not be harmed by overturning the rule.

Or you can attempt to bully and intimidate them into changing the rule. History has almost universally proven that the latter tactic does not work. Sadly, that is what many same sex marriage proponents have done in reaction to Prop 8.

No matter how sympathetic you may feel for persons who want to marry a person of the same sex, that sympathy quickly fades when you see people storming private property shouting their views to others engaged in peaceful, private activities (a church service). Or, when you see protestors on the street shoving an old lady with whom they disagree. Or when you see people threaten some who agree with them but who happen to be a member of a group which generally opposed their point of view. All these things have happened in connection with Prop 8.

Unfortunately, these protestors are now giving me second thoughts. Now I am being pushed to look beyond the merits of same sex marriage. Now I want to say, "Wait a minute! Are you really the loving, caring people we have believed you are? Or are you just another bunch of thugs bent on imposing your will on the rest of us?"

Who Is The Better Speaker?

Right now the elitist liberals in the U.S. are having fun... pretending they are so accustomed to George W. Bush's sometimes halting style of speech that they are confused when Barack Obama speaks in complete sentences. What is really funny here is the liberals display of their own ignorance.

During my radio broadcasting career, we learned that you often have the opportunity say it only once, so it is important that you say it correctly. Unlike print, where the reader can stop and re-read what you have written, there is no go-back in broadcasting (until, at least, the advent of Tivo!). We used to say KISS, or, Keep It Simple, Stupid.

Simple is okay. Clearly understood is what we actually wanted. .

Steven Pinker is a professor at M.I.T. who has written books on language. Dr. Pinker is a man after my own heart. While he does not exactly trash the rules that make language a bit more melodious, he does not give those rules paramount importance.

In essence, Dr. Pinker says the object of language is the transfer of thoughts or ideas. If person "A" says something to person "B" and "B" clearly and accurately understands what "A" was thinking, their language is good. Bravo, Steven Pinker!

Unfortunately, in the dumbing down of America, the language czars have prevailed and a large number of people now put style over substance. No wonder print readership is falling. What is said is no longer as important as how it sounds.

George W. Bush is a good and decent man. When he answers a question he takes a moment - often in mid-sentence - to weigh his thoughts, to be sure he is accurately and clearly conveying those thoughts in his speech. This sometimes makes him sound halting, which the intellectuals interpret as stupid. Now along comes Obama, whose flowing rhetoric sounds really intelligent.

Everyone is impressed with his manner of speech. Few are hearing what he is saying.

For example, in a discussion of abortion, Obama said, "If one of my daughters makes a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby." Millions of adoring fans thought he was a caring and considerate father.

A less eloquent, but more forthright, speaker may have said: "If my daughter falls for some smooth talk, gets laid and creates a baby, we'll just kill the damn thing. Can't have my daughter burdened with taking responsibility for her own actions."

How would Americans have reacted to that statement? It was, after all, just a more accurate way of expressing the exact same thought Obama was sharing.

To me, the most beautiful expression of intelligence is when someone says, "Wait a minute... what did he just say?" Let me know if you ever hear that.

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck - It's A Duck!

Scoff, if you will, at the duck paradigm of scientific exploration, but when you have spent 80 years looking at ducks, watching them walk, listening to them quack... you get pretty good at determining if that really is a duck!

With that in mind, here is my take on candidate Obama - two days before the big election.

A little history: Obama's Mom was an air-headed white girl from southeast Kansas. Nothing evil about that, America is full of air-heads. Witness the Obama supporters in Harlem, interviewed by Howard Stern's roving reporter... the ones who were okay with Obama's pro-life stance and thought it was pretty cool that he had selected Sarah Palin as his running mate???

I once lived in Southeast Kansas. Different folks there. Across the state line in Springfield, Missouri, my business partner and I once took a client, along with his sales manager and his ad manager to lunch at a decent restaurant. When the servers delivered our meals, the client required that we all hold hands and bow our heads while the sales manager, in a clearly audible voice, said Grace. No big deal. Just different.

So, Obama's Mom went off to school, to begin a lifelong career as a student. She chose a U.S. school in Hawaii, about as far as you can get from Wichita. As a further bit of evidence that she did not have a close family relationship and strong Kansas social grounding, she took up with some black men. Years later, in the 1970s, one of my own white daughters wrote me from college that the cutest guys on campus were black, and seemed to be probing for my opinion about her dating a black kid. But this was the 1950s. A black and white couple would have suffered instense social pressure.

I say Obama's mom took up with black men, because we know she was legally married to one, but when she gave birth to a mixed race child, he looked more like Frank, the black poet in the neighborhood, then the man whose name he was given. Was that marriage one of convenience to help the Kenyan stay in the U.S.? Did they ever actually consumate their marriage in the biblical sense of the word? That is to say, "Is Barack his kid?" We'll likely never know.

Anyway, the Kenyan outlasted the usefulness of the marriage and split. Mom now married Lolo, an Indonesean man (He wasn't a Wichita sort of guy, either!), and off they went to Southeast Asia. He turned out to be another bum and she dropped him. Not, however, until he had indoctrinated her son to some degree (while they were learning boxing and shooting baskets) in the art of eating meat from dogs and snakes and roasted grasshoppers. And, he instructed Barack, "If you can't be strong, be clever and make peace with someone who's strong. But always better to be strong yourself. Always".

After about four years, much to her credit, she concluded that sitting in a classroom with a bunch of ragheads learning scriptures from the Quran was not going to help her son earn a living. So she shipped him back to Hawaii to be raised by her parents. Thankfully, they were not happy about the distance from Hawaii to Wichita and had moved to the islands to be closer to their daughter. (Was that why she escaped to Indonesia??)

Every parent knows that every teenager thinks their parents are archaic. If you were a cool black dude, going home to a white family each day must have been extremely painful. But when that white family is grandparents... it must have been unbearable.

Barack started hanging out with the old black poet. Why? Was this really his father. Had he spent time at Barack's house while his mother was in Hawaii? No matter. We know now that the poet was Frank Marshall Davis, a Communist of the first order, who taught Barack that black people "have a reason to hate."

Barack learned to placate people's fears by being courteous and smiling a lot. "...they found it a pleasant surprise to find a well-mannered young black man who didn't seem angry all the time."

Eventually, with the knowledge that black people have a reason to hate; with the understanding that it is better to be strong - but next best to make peace with someone who is strong; and with a smattering of indoctrination in Communism, Barack made it off to the Ivy Leagues. There, hard left professors added an intellectual tone to those learnings.

Radicalized and educated, Barack found someone strong to make peace with. He fell in with Alinsky and Ayers; served his apprenticeship to them and convinced them he was someone worth considerable investment in time and fortune. His community agitation work took him to black churches where some pastors, still believing in hard work and education as the road to success, rejected him. Then he met Jeremiah Wright. Wright gave legitimacy to his 'Hate All whites" leanings. Ayers honed the Communistic beliefs incubated by the poet Frank.

Somehow they arranged his admission to Harvard Law School. With an Organizer's salary of about $12,000 a year, Obama found the tens of thousands of dollars needed for tuition and living expenses. (Tuition to HLS today is $44,900!!) Nice trick!

They hand carried him into the Illinois State Senate and to the U.S. Senate. With acceptance by the DNC he became a candidate for President. Employing all those "smile while you backstab" tactics he had perfected, he defeated all "regular" Democrats and won the nomination.

So, today we have a white-hating, Muslim accepting, young black Communist itching to move into the Oval Office.

Where do I get all this? Just my opinion. (Did I hear a quack?)

But they haven't lettered his name on the door just yet, so with a deeply imbedded sense of patriotism and great trust in the American people, this Tuesday night I will go to bed early, as I do every night, and wait until Wednesday to celebrate President McCain.

UPDATE: Okay, America surprised me. But, which America? Today I scratch my head, wondering where were the Catholics when they chose a man who "wouldn't want his daughters punished with a baby"? Where were the Jews when they abandoned a friend of Israel? Where were the feminists who railed against fair treatment of women, when they dissed an honest, self-made woman from Alaska? And what happened to Black America, after pleading for an end to racism, themselves became racist and voted 95% for skin pigment?