Media Bias

Who controls the media? Conservatives claim the liberals hold more sway over it, the liberals accuse conservatives of owning it. Both sides of the debate actually have very compelling arguments to make their case, but the debate over ideological media-dominance ignores other important dimensions of bias and fails to address the question of whether bias is actually a bad thing.

The arguments over media bias are often flimsy at best, offensively reductionist at worst. Jews, Celebrities, Corporations, Liberals and Conservatives are just some of the demographics accused of manipulating factual reporting for their own ends. This top-down theory of media control ignores the bottom-up freedom consumers have in choosing the media they want to view. If you believe an evil-conspiracy of Jewish overlords controls the New York Times, then you have the right to buy the New York Post, which others believe is run by a megalomaniac corporatist, Rupert Murdock.

Another argument often heard, especially in the blogosphere, is, “Why isn’t the media covering this?” With a finite amount of minutes in the day and paper to print on, news networks must exercise some degree of selectivity in what news to cover. Very few stories can take the center stage and often stories important to one demographic will get bumped in favor of stories that appeal to everyone. This is a bias toward populism and profits, not one of ideology.

More often this spurious evidence of media bias is actually proof of the media’s integrity. The blogosphere is a breeding ground for rumors and innuendo. The major news outlets have a responsibility not to report any story without all the facts.

Take for instance two case studies in media coverage. When Matt Drudge broke a story about John Kerry having an affair with an intern on his blog the Drudge Report, the major media did not bite and there was much outrage in the blogosphere because of it. The story was quickly proven a falsehood, essentially fabricated entirely by Matt Drudge himself, and subsequently vanished with no repercussions to Matt Drudge’s reputation.

Now consider the major repercussions to CBS for presenting forged documents damning George Bush’s service in the National Guard. The major media worked slowly, attempting to uncover the truth of the matter, and the story grew slowly into a massive embarrassment for CBS.

In both of these cases there was much outrage over the fact that the media was not giving sufficient coverage to these stories and was therefore biased, but in each case the media acted responsibly and the truth of the matter was discerned accurately for public consumption. We can see, therefore, the debate over media bias more often reveals the bias of the debaters than any systemic illumnatus-style conspiracy within the news networks.

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Demographic Demands

Debates over ideological bias completely ignore the regional dimension of bias in news networks. Al Jazeera, the Arabian news network, has often been decried by the American government, especially the Pentagon, for spreading anti-American propaganda. Al Jazeera’s news coverage indisputably tells a story of events in the middle East far different from America’s. In the Iraq war and following American occupation, the news network has focused almost exclusively on civilian casualties and other deleterious effects of these events. Is this propaganda?

That’s entirely a matter of perspective. British Broadcasting, the BBC, when covering disasters such as plane crashes or bombings, always takes a moment to focus on the number of British citizens killed. A similar phenomenon takes place in American news media, where American citizens killed overseas are the focus for coverage. A terrorist attack in a foreign country will get more airplay on American news networks if American’s are among the victims.

This is not propaganda, but merely catering to audience demographics. The Arab world is concerned with civilian casualties in Iraq and Al Jazeera must therefore make that its focus. The Arab world is highly skeptical of American intentions in the Middle East and Al Jazeera must play the media watchdog for those concerns.

Consider Al Jazeera’s polar opposite, FOX News. A channel that has practically acquired the American flag as its station’s logo. Fox News emphasized the humanitarian efforts in Iraq immediately following the war, and provided little coverage of civilian casualties. Again, this is not propaganda, but customizing their coverage appropriately to their viewer ship.

Fox News has risen up to compete with CNN due to its more in-depth analysis and Al Jazeera’s English website has become an invaluable resource for covering stories American media overlook. Some critics state that somewhere in between Al Jazeera and Fox News is an acurate characterization of events, but a more accurate statement might be: Fox News plus Al Jazeera is a more accurate characterization of events.

Plus The Guardian plus The New York Times plus The Wallstreet Journal plus The Economist… etc… etc…

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Problems With All Media

There are problems with all news sources that we must remain aware of else we fall victim to a lopsided view of the world.

Sensationalism

Protesters who comport themselves respectfully get drastically less coverage then rioting students in the streets or people painted up or baring insulting posters. This is the Catch-22 of organized demonstrations, you can either behave and get little to no media coverage, or you can riot and get plenty of bad coverage.

News Networks, beholden to advertising revenue, must maintain ratings. They must capture their viewer’s attention and keep them transfixed. Because of this, the Human Interest “Feel Good” stories take a backseat to more threatening news. A scared audience is a faithful audience.

Normalization

“all the radios agree with all the TV’s and all the magazines agree with all the radios and I keep hearing that same damn song everywhere I go!” Ani Difranco laments in her song “Fuel,” and the need for media to appeal to the “lowest common denominator” has a great deal to do with the echo-chamber effect many stories take on across different news networks. Just as media apply sensationalism to harvest audience attention, so to do they echo one another, lest one network steal its competitor’s audience by covering a story the other passed on.

Similar to the art/life influence question, it is fair to ask whether events dictate the media’s content or does media dictate the content? Each influences the other. Events with popular appeal command media coverage. At the same time, Media coverage of events increases their appeal. There is a complex system of emergence occurring here.

Consolidation

Normalization is a type of consolidation, one of populism, but here we use the term in relation to the trend of media sources coming under the management of a single corporation or individual. Public airwaves are a limited resource, and if one company were to monopolize them, then communities would only be hearing information deemed appropriate by the one company. A media monopoly could dictate political outcomes by suppressing coverage of Candidates it deemed unacceptable. It could eliminate competing products from the airwaves and advertise only those products the company produces itself.

The Federal Government prevents the establishment of media monopolies, just as it prevents market ones. Print media and the Internet are especially resistant to monopolization, but often audiences are unaware of what media corporations own. If the same corporation produces several newspapers in a single community, or controls several radio or television stations, then the community may erroneously believe they are obtaining news from different sources.

Objectivity

Objectivity was removed from the Society of Professional Journalists’ code of ethics in 1996. On its face, presenting the facts alone seems honest and fair, but Journalists have a greater responsibility to their audience than to play stenographer to talking heads. Corporations, Lobbyists, and Politicians all use the news media to get their messages out, and a news network that merely relays their message is nothing more than an infomercial for their cause.

Sports Commentator Frank DeFord gives the best example of why objectivity in journalism is a very bad thing. When Candidate A says that the world is flat, the only thing the Objective Journalist can do is give Candidate B’s statement that the world is round. The audience has no way to tell which Candidate is telling the truth.

Imagine a Football coach lying about their achievements and not being challenged by the interviewer. It does not happen, but in politics our journalists must remain neutral while politicians lie, lest they be accused of bias. A more responsible ethic for the journalist is to provide context, serving the needs of their audience in presenting the truth.

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Go Eclectic

Thank Computer Science for the Internet. We are no longer restricted to any one news source. We can pick and choose our coverage from a variety of sources, culling the best ideas out of them for a mosaic of perspectives on the world.

This approach to news isn’t for everybody. I understand that most people are far too fragile cognitively to engage a news source that may report facts in conflict with their worldview. But I do urge this approach for everyone. Consider occasionally venturing out of the ideological shelters provided by Fox News and the Washington Post an exercise in challenging your cognitive schema.

Here are some news sources and my take on them:

CNN: The endless stream of data CNN provides 24 hours a day is the result of thousands of reporters and 40 bureaus world-wide. Having to cram such a deluge of information into 30-minute segments means the news is summarized, never getting past the first paragraph of the story. Thus the title “Headline News.”

FOX News: Lacking CNN’s army of reporters and bureaus, Fox has managed to earn its market share with in-depth analysis of events from a right-leaning perspective. Personality-based commentaries are the focus, drawing hypotheses out of the headlines.

These two approaches to reporting have resulted in very different, but equal market shares of viewer ship. CNN’s flat data-stream has resulted in a larger cumulative viewer ship than Fox (more individuals watching for shorter time spans), while Fox’s in-depth commentary approach has a larger average viewer ship (less individuals watching for longer time spans). (source)

The Washington Post: The left-leaning coverage provided by the Washington Post serves as a counter-balance to Fox New’s right-leaning coverage. Where Fox provides important skeptical inquiry into the Democrat’s agendas, the WP provides important critical coverage of the Republican’s. Like the Arab versus American medias, the truth is found by combining Fox and the WP–neither source is as unfairly biased as their detractors would have you believe.

The Wall Street Journal: The right-leaning WSJ has successfully diversified its reporting out of strictly financial coverage into political commentaries, lifestyles, and current events.

The New York Times: The left-leaning “Paper of Record” earned its title originally by passing up many big-headlines to wait until all the facts were solidified. A recent, in-depth and self-critical analysis of their mistakes in reporting leading up the the Iraq war may signal a return to this standard.

National Public Radio: Listener-supported NPR is one of the few networks that can deflect any accusations of bias due to Corporate ownership. The corporations and organizations that do donate to NPR come from across the moderate political spectrum, including the PEW Research Center and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The London Times: It’s wonderful to step outside of the American perspective and see what the rest of the world’s perspective is on current events.

Al Jazeera: This news network’s journalists were among the few to forgo “embedding” with American forces, and their unique perspective between the combating forces earned it a reputation on both sides as a propaganda factory for both America and Iraq. The network’s highly pro-Democracy stance has prompted many Middle Eastern countries to ban it. Monitoring this news source, the most popular source in the Middle East, is crucial to understanding the public opinion in the Arab world. (Note: The web address for the Al Jazeera News Network is http://english.aljazeera.net/ NOT www.aljazeera.com/, which is NOT associated with the Qatari based Satellite Channel.)

Like I said, this is just a small smattering of what’s out there. Going eclectic means going beyond these examples. Enjoy the adventure!

“Marriage” seems to be a nebulous concept on its own without sexual orientation entering the debate. Civil unions, marriages, lifepartnerships benefit communities by providing stability, and this benefit alone is sufficient for promoting them, but the debate over lifepartnerships extends into definitions that include the potential to produce viable offspring, religious requirements, appeals to tradition, sexual norms, and the social stigmas surrounding various types of unions. While most of these arguments are meant to prohibit homosexual partnerships, accepting any of them has the unintended consequence of prohibiting lifepartnerships to most heterosexual couples as well.

Easily the least inclusive definition of marriage/civil union are the religious ones. Various religious dogmas prohibit a wide variety of sexual practices both hetero and homo. Many Jews and Christians are prohibited from marrying outside of their religion. If Christian or Jewish or Islamic faith was a requirement for marriage then a large portion of the population would be prohibited from getting one. The religious definition of marriage also carries a great deal of subjectivity, as we must wonder which religion has the proper definition of marriage

The appeal to a traditional approach to marriage requires the invalidation of our modern concepts of equality and human rights. Traditionally, the female half of our population was considered property of the male in a marriage contract. Men and women with mental illnesses were sterilized to prevent their producing offspring. Miscegenation was also illegal. Similar to religious appeals, the problem of subjectivity, which traditions are we to maintain and which to let go, provides us with no strict standards to base our decisions.

The slippery slope argument states that if we legitimize homosexual unions, then we come closer to legitimizing sexually abhorrent behaviors such as pedophilia and bestiality. The core difference between homosexuality, heterosexuality, rape, bestiality and pedophilia concerns the issue of consent. Animals and children in our society cannot give their consent to a sexual act. This is the reason pedophilia, rape, and bestiality will never be legalized in our society, because each of these acts involves the victimization of another being. Homosexuality and heterosexuality involve two consenting adults acting of their own freewill. There is no gray zone in this equation. We have strictly defined criteria for consistently determining what society will allow.

The other problem with this argument is that it betrays a total lack of faith in the human race’s ability to moderate its behaviors. This argument, by implying that bestiality and pedophilia would become social norms, equates human beings with beasts that cannot be trusted with any freedom whatsoever. We are one step from burning down our houses and murdering one another in an orgiastic exercise of self-indulgence. Let’s try and keep a realistic perspective on one another.

Defining a marriage as a union with the potential to produce viable offspring also leaves us with too much subjectivity. Asexuals, the impotent, and the sterile would be prohibited from marrying, and this is an unintended consequence for many who argue this point. For those who this is not, then we must consider couples with the potential to produce children who do not. At what point would we invalidate their union for failing to serve this purpose? What happens when cloning allows lesbian couples to cultivate sperm cells and artificially inseminate one another?

The social stigma associated with some unions is also used as an argument for disallowing them, but social stigmas are dependent on subjective social norms, which are also mercurial in nature. Today’s stigma becomes tomorrow’s accepted difference. Miscegenation was prohibited partially because it violated social norms. Interracial marriages are still unique enough to potentially fail a social normalization test. What criteria do we apply to establish what unions evoke sufficient stigma to warrant their prohibition? Ugly people marrying evokes revulsion in many people. Should that qualify?

It’s interesting that in the corporate world, this whole definition of marriage is a non-issue. I used to build Human Resources Intranets for companies like Sony, Lockheed Martin, and PSINet. The word “marriage” appeared nowhere in these systems, instead they used the term “lifepartner.” This term was inclusive to heterosexual marriages, homosexual unions, and heterosexual domestic relationships. It made employees happy, reduced the stress in their lives and provided stability.

Social Stability is the common benefit all of these partnerships provide our communities. Domestic Partnerships, romantic or practical, allows two people to assist one another in living. Their incomes merge, their skill sets compliment one another, they take turns cleaning and cooking, or one can drive the other to work when a car breaks down. These are relationship “franchises” that plant roots in communities because one partner can’t do anything without the other’s consent.

What about “marriage?” The purely religious nature of this term violates the separation of church and state. The Government must cease acknowledging it and begin using the term “Partnership,” “Lifepartners,” or “Civil Unions.” This would also eliminate any concerns about the emergence of a “separate but equal” paradox.

Civil Unions or Lifepartnerships are not always about producing children or religious virtue, so we cannot produce a definition of them according to these standards. Homosexual and Heterosexual partnerships involve two consenting adults living according to their own personal standards of acceptable behavior that do not infringe upon the rights of others. No solid objective criteria for preventing one and allowing the other can possibly be established.

When two consenting adults agree contractually to cohabitate and cooperate, their potential grows beyond what they were capable of as individuals. Partnerships provide stability to their communities and it’s in the interest of local governments to encourage them. Get rid of “Marriages” and welcome “Lifepartnerships.”

Note: This is a series of three posts on campaign finance laws, my thoughts on the matter evolve through the debate.

Repeal Campaign Finance Laws

How do I like my crow? This thought has been rolling around in my mind for some time now. You see, I was one of those people who vociferously advocated Campaign Finance Reform. If I had been running this blog in 2002, I would have posted a Theory entry arguing for how important it was to restrict the influence political donations were having on our political system.

Then I would post this article as a retraction to my former stance.

I apologize to all of my conservative friends, who warned that such a legal web would grow to encompass talk shows and movies. I blew this off as a Big Brother conspiracy theory. I have now seen enough attempts by both sides of the aisle to shut down these forms of media to know this is a very real threat.

I apologize to all of my liberal friends, who warned that the laws would restrict grassroots assemblies. I blew this off as ridiculous. How could the government prevent people from organizing? The legal battles working their way through the courts over 527 independent political committees are exactly this fear manifested.

I apologize to everyone on both sides of the aisles, who correctly pointed out that there was no conceivable way such restrictions could be implemented fairly. I apologize to all of you who tried to illustrate the way these laws would favor the party with the power to refine them through legislature and legal battles, just like the voting districts of our electoral college. I see now that this is an incredible and unmanageable mess we have created for ourselves, and it will only get worse in time.

So how do I like my crow? Apparently lukewarm, because I realized the error in my schema concerning this issue a long time ago, but have only now gotten up the nerve to correct myself. Although, I have only recently fully understood the error in my logic.

I failed to take into account the complexity of our Political Arena. I was sold on the ideal of Campaign Finance Reform, the romanticism of a bipartisan effort led by McCain and Feingold. I allowed myself to simplify the issue to Congress taking money from special interests. Campaign Finance hasn’t changed that. Politicians still vote according to their donors wishes and, in fact, campaign finance laws have even given an edge to special interest groups.

On the surface, Campaign Finance Laws are entirely about money. They are meant to restrict the amount of money a candidate can receive from various sources and spend through different means. This seems fair at first, until we look at the conundrum of “Soft” money, which includes money Special Interest groups don’t contribute directly to a Campaign, but spend on advertising for that Campaign.

Organizations that advertise against a candidate, such as MoveOn.org or the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, are arguably advertising for the candidate’s opponent with the contributions they receive. Similarly, a talk show host, such as Rush Limbaugh or Al Franken, who’s shows have political objectives, are advertising for their candidates as well with the advertising income they receive. Each of these are a loophole in the system, where unofficial campaign contributions come in the form of donations or advertising dollars. These are forms of speech that are under threat.

How is it fair to prevent citizens from putting their monies together to run ads intended to advocate their beliefs? How is it fair to restrict the content of Rush Limbaugh’s radio show or prevent advertising the release of a Michael Moore film in the months leading up to an election? How do we objectively assess when all of these sources of speech are crossing the lines of Campaign Finance reform? Or will it be like pornography, when Justice Stewart, in response to the Supreme Court’s inability to define obscenity, famously said, “I know it when I see it.”

How do we implement a subjectively defined fairness doctrine across all forms of speech simultaneously? What happens if the grassroots organizations get more attention in the courts than the pundit talk shows or vice versa? How is it fair to unbalance the playing field, even temporarily? The gears of democracy grind slowly, but in politics even a week is an eternity.

We have legitimized a debate over what forms of speech are allowable in our democracy. 527’s are not going to be the last loophole in this debate. People will find other ways to be heard. We can’t take pundit radio shows off the air, so are we going to establish independent monitors, like the FCC, to evaluate what they say? The slippery-slope arguments posed before the ratification of Campaign Finance Laws are becoming realized. How will the Courts handle the incredibly sticky case of Sinclair Broadcasting’s decision to air an anti-Kerry documentary right before the election and defending it as news coverage?

We have entered a disputational quagmire where we are all fighting for the ideal of fair debate, but it cannot be won and it’s time to cut our losses. Unfetter the market of ideas again, let the grassroots assemble their populist powers, let the corporatists wield their media monopolies. It is not ideal, nor fair, but it is better than legislating the freedom of speech. We are already finding we cannot trust those prosecuting or defending the cases being brought before our courts.

Let’s remember the principle that people will find a way. It doesn’t just apply to people exploiting methods that Campaign Finance laws overlooked, but to people exploiting all methods of everything in debate. Earlier I pondered how the courts would handle Sinclair Broadcasting’s airing of an anti-Kerry documentary, but this situation will never have its day in court. Grass Roots organizations across the country contacted the companies that advertise on Sinclair’s channels and threatened to boycott them. The advertisers pressured Sinclair and the company agreed to re-produce the documentary more even-handedly, even allowing John Kerry a rebuttal. No one owns a monopoly on being heard.

The people will find a way.

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A Few Inaccuracies and Misrepresentations

• I posted an article titled “Repeal Campaign Finance Laws.”
• Matthew McKinzie at CaffeineZombie posted a counterpoint titled “It’s Hard Work.”
• Chris Mitchell at OneMansRage posted a counterpoint to both of the above articles titled “We Don’t Need Campaign Finance, We Need Equal Time.”

Both McKinzie’s and Mitchell’s posts are full of excellent observations on the issues surrounding our public political discourse, and I must acknowledge upfront that they have each moved me along the scale concerning this disputation. Today I will begin with my criticisms of their posts and next I will explore the alternatives to Campaign Finance Reform they propose.

Both authors misrepresent the controversy over Sinclair Broadcasting’s documentary of John Kerry’s Vietnam service. McKinzie correctly notes that Sinclair did air four minutes of the documentary, but leaves out the important qualification, “as part of a larger news program.” By leaving out the fact that Sinclair was successfully pressured into airing a much more balanced show, McKinzie focuses purely on the four minutes of content he disagrees with, skewing his readers’ perceptions of the broadcast as a completely unbalanced anti-Kerry smear.

Mitchell incorrectly states that Campaign Finance laws prevented Sinclair from airing the “Stolen Honor” documentary:

Sinclair can’t run the anti-Kerry documentary within 90 days of the election, but Al Franken can call Bush a fascist up to that morning.

In fact the FCC Chairman Michael Powell stated his group would not intervene with Sinclair’s broadcast. Sinclair was pressured by its advertisers and investors, who were pressured by massive boycotts mobilized by grassroots and 527 groups. Sinclair was well within its legal rights to air the documentary.

“Borderline idiotic” and “equally stupidly” are pejoratives Mitchell flings out in the middle of an otherwise thoughtful essay, and the integrity of his post suffers greatly from the single paragraph where he uses them.* (These are not to be confused with the friendly, tongue-in-cheek jabs both McKinzie and Mitchell throw at yours truly early in their essays. As anyone who has met me will attest, I am indeed both a “dumbass” and a “wussy foo-foo.”)

McKinzie believes that I was using a slippery-slope argument when I stated that commentators like Rush Limbaugh and Al Franken were threatened by Campaign Finance, stating, “no one is suggesting that Al Franken or Rush Limbaugh be shut down”; however, I did post this source as an example. The 527 group Citizens United attempted just this very thing with not only the advertising of Michael Moore’s film, but the entire release of it as well. Instead of addressing this very clear-cut example, McKinzie preferred to ignore it.

McKinzie unfairly oversimplifies my arguments, stating that I believe “campaign finance laws are unenforceable, because big-money donors will inevitably find ways to manipulate them to their advantage and because campaign finance laws restrict free speech.” If only this were so simple a conundrum. My argument involves the nebulous meaning of “Soft Money,” which is dependent entirely on how money is used in communication with people. Early attempts to control excessive soft money influence in campaigns restricted ads that used language specifically endorsing a candidate. In response, the soft money moved to issue ads, which did not outright endorse a candidate, but endorsed their platform or attacked their opponent.

Now soft money is being applied in a myriad of ways that skirt the presently defined restrictions. The Sinclair anti-Kerry documentary and Michael Moores “Fahrenheit 9/11” are only the most well-known examples of the fuzzy line between legitimate news and what is meant to be a persuasive media piece. There are many easy ways around the soft money ban, like buying a television station, making a documentary film, purchase a celebrity like Rush Limbaugh or Al Franken and use their command of the media to advocate a cause, or simply pour all your money into internet advertising. We may separate spending from speech, but only to a degree, as these examples clearly demonstrate, money and speech are definitely intertwined, making this a free speech issue in many cases.

*NOTE: Mitchell has stated in the comments section of his blog that the two pejoratives were actually poking fun rather than being employed seriously.

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How Do We Provide Balance?

Both McKinzie and Mitchell offer their own solutions for providing equal message time to political campaigns. McKinzie suggests returning to a poll tax as a means of regulating campaign financing. Mitchell suggests a stricter enforcement of the Equal Time laws.

The Poll Tax

A poll tax would ensure that all Candidates get equal money to run their campaigns. I currently support a variant of this system. When I file my taxes, I always check “Yes” for the “Do you want $3 of your federal tax to go to the Presidential Election Campaign Fund?” question as a means of supporting third party candidates who are usually the only ones to accept this money. It doesn’t cost me anything and I recommend anyone who isn’t a Democrat or Republican to support this option.

The problem with a poll tax, beyond, as McKinzie points out, its past abuses to prevent African Americans from voting, is the fair implementation of such a system. If candidates were forced to turn to the government as their sole source of funding, then political strategies would shift to the laws governing who qualifies as a political candidate. The two parties have engineered things to make it difficult for Candidates not Republican or Democrat to get on the ballot in most states.

Another tactic would be opposing parties working to get the candidates of other parties on the ballot to dilute the voters among candidates with similar platforms. We then have a serious dilemma. Which I hope I can explain:

Party A and Party B are the forerunners in an election. Party C is a third party with a platform identical to Party B, so Party A makes a successful drive to get Party C on the ballot. Party B and C now have equal funding thanks to the government, and although Party B has more supporters, Party C has equal advertising power and their competition will split the vote. Party A has now successfully used Party C’s campaign finances to improve its own chances of winning the election.

A very similar tactic was used by Republicans to get Ralph Nader on the ballot in the 2004 election. In a system where all candidates have equal funding provided by the government, this would have been a disaster for the Democrats’ campaign, as Ralph Nader would have equal means to get his message out. Under the current system, a campaign’s finances do somewhat correlate to their national support; although, we may legitimately debate whether this is a cause-effect relationship and which cause manifests which effect. : )

Equal Time

Equal Time is another possible solution to concerns over fairness in Political Campaigns. There have been many attempts to institute such policies throughout American history; however, each attempt has run into difficulties. There does not appear to be any way to fairly implement an equal time clause.

The equal opportunity provision of the Communications Act requires radio and television stations to provide airtime to each candidate equally. If a television station gives one minute of airtime to Candidate A, then they must also provide Candidate B with one minute of airtime. The same thing goes for selling airtime, where each Candidate must be allowed to purchase equal amounts of time on any one station.

Congress amended the provision in 1959 to exclude news coverage. Incumbent Candidates invariably required more airtime to cover stories concerning Government operations; therefore, it was unfeasible to give a challenger equal airtime when the news was covering current events. It was also unfair to spend an incumbent Candidate’s airtime on news stories potentially unrelated to their campaign, when they may rather spend it addressing voters directly. The playing field became unbalanced as incumbent candidates use their news-making ability to wage what are now known as “Perpetual Campaigns.”

The Fairness Doctrine prevented television and radio stations from airing one opinion all of the time unchallenged. It was established in 1949 and was a political standard until 1987, when the FCC abolished it. Ronald Regan vetoed a Congressional attempt to make the doctrine federal law, and George Bush vetoed a second attempt in 1989. An attempt to revive the Fairness Doctrine in 1993 was squashed by a grassroots effort led by talk radio host Rush Limbaugh. The Republican Congress has made no effort to revive the doctrine in the last ten years. (For a comprehensive history of this issue, click here.)

Once the fairness doctrine was abandoned, it became possible for overtly partisan commentators to come on the air. Before this, challengers could use the doctrine to force the radio station that carried pro-Republican talk show host Rush Limbaugh to follow his show with a pro-Democrat commentator. The modern day success of all-conservative and all-liberal radio stations is used as evidence that the Fairness Doctrine was detrimental to free enterprise.

At this point the cat is out of the bag. Democrats and Republicans each have their own 24-hour platform on the radio. The market supports this situation and the emergence of digital broadcasting has provided an environment where we have unlimited broadcasting capability. Unlike the limitations of public airwaves, everyone will eventually be able to get on digital cable.

The biggest problem with equal time is deciding how far to take it. What qualifies a candidate to appear on the air in response to their opponent getting airtime? A third party candidate should, in all fairness, get to stand with the two-parties, but this could conceivably allow fringe candidates on the air as well. While I would love to see a challenger from the Communist or Libertarian parties get the opportunity to spar ideologically with the Democrat and Republican, this level of equal time could turn media coverage into chaos.

Soft Money

Unfortunately, neither McKinzie’s or Mitchell’s solutions do anything to address the issue under dispute, which is Soft Money. A poll tax would do absolutely nothing to prevent soft money expenditures from unbalancing the political playing field. Equal Time would only give candidate VS candidate equal coverage, but not prevent incumbent “Perpetual Campaigns” or address soft money spending flooding the media.

The “money is not speech” argument fails where soft money is concerned. Web hosting, newspaper printing, book publishing, television programming, and movie producing all cost money. Money and speech are intertwined, for without money, we are all reduced to screaming at the top of our lungs on street corners.

The problem with the “It’s their money argument” is one of extent. How far do we take this principle? Should we allow a modern-day William Randolf Hearst to buy all of the news sources for a single community and restrict the content of those sources to only the truth the owner approves of? While we cannot regulate speech, we can regulate money when it infringes on others. Monopolies can prevent another citizen from speaking in the public forum, and that is where government regulation becomes justified.

So what’s the solution? I have no answer to this because I have no definitive criteria for what constitutes a soft money abuse, and that’s the problem no one has a solution to. This issue, if we continue this route, will require a permanent disputation in our political discourse to define its ideal mean — and maybe that’s not a bad thing.

So my critics have won a victory on this issue. Mitchell and McKinzie’s competing views have made me realize that we cannot wholly abandon the issue of soft money and we must not overplay it either. Their challenges have convinced me to stand back and continue allowing the disputation to continue. There are certainly people far more knowledgeable than I am on the subject.

I could easily be completely wrong about the people’s ability to properly regulate soft money. I have not read the hundreds of pages of legalese that comprises the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, and have relied on a wide variety of pro and con commentaries to understand its implications. Barring the Supreme Court ruling it a violation of the first amendment or a legislative action to overturn it, we will have the opportunity to see how this disputation plays out in American politics.

In the meantime, I’ll move my “Repeal Campaign Finance” article from the “Theories” section to the “Disputations,” and help myself to another serving of yummy yummy crow.

Further reading.

This has been a wonderful exercise in debate and I hope readers will give all of our arguments and perspectives on these matters equal attention as a terrific example of disputational dynamics. This is a very complex issue that affects the entirety of political discourse in our society. Keep an eye on this blog as I will be posting on this subject again around about the same time hell freezes over.

Wile E. Coyote

Wile E. Coyote, self-proclaimed “Super Genius,” goes by the scientific name “Eternalii Famishus,” has one all-consuming goal in life, to catch the Road Runner, scientific name “Acceleratii Incredibilus.” To accomplish this, Wile E implements a wide variety of weapons, state of the art technologies, and McGuyveresque (which should really be “Wile E Coyotesque”) makeshift feats of mechanical engineering. Despite his profound intellectual capacity, Wile E has never successfully apprehended this dim-witted bird.

I always wanted Wile E to catch that damn bird. I didn’t care what he did with it. I just wanted his efforts not to go to waste. This is the reaction Wile’s creators want to evoke in the audience, one of sympathy for this mangy and brilliant ever-predator.

Chuck Jones, Wile’s creator, and closest approximation to God, has defined Wile’s universe with many basic laws. Among these, one stands out as the source of Wile’s whoas:

No outside force can harm the Coyote — only his own ineptitude or the failure of Acme products.

Wile E’s creator has obviously taken many liberties with this law. Wile E is not at all inept. His engineering designs exhibit a thorough understanding of nature’s physical laws. It’s not his fault that the gods of his universe are whimsical about enforcing them. How often have we seen velocity, gravity, and mass go topsy-turvy on this poor coyote-scientist?

So Wile E’s Universe works against him. Certainly there are moments when he does genuinely miscalculate, underestimate, or overestimate factors in his plans, but these sorts of mistakes are hardly the result of “ineptitude,” rather they are a natural fact of experimentation, and experimentation is what Wile E’s endeavors to capture the Road Runner are all about.

Wile E’s faithful adherence to scientific principles in a universe that has no respect for them is admirable. When the wrong half of the cliff falls away or the heavier end of the catapult flips upside down to smash him, Wile E goes back to his drawing board faithfully and tries again and again and again and again. He knows how the laws of his universe should work, but does not know that the gods lording over his existence are sadistic jerks who take glee in his suffering. Still… why doesn’t Wile E learn from all those whacks, bangs, smashes, and ka-booms? Shouldn’t he have figured out that something is amiss with the natural laws and discovered the law of everything working against poor Wile E???

Just as Titus Andronicus allowed his loyalty to the Emperor to override his good judgment and bring about his tragedy, or as Hamlet’s inaction brought death upon so many, including himself, Wile E. Coyote has a character flaw that brings him endless suffering. For all his brilliance, Wile E cannot see beyond his immediate all-consuming goal. Chuck Jones makes this same point, “The Coyote could stop anytime — IF he was not a fanatic. (Repeat: “A fanatic is one who redoubles his effort when he has forgotten his aim.” – George Santayana)”

Wile E’s unhealthy obsession with the Road Runner, his derangement if you will, inspires him to invent fantastic contraptions for the task of apprehending his prey. On the level of invention his psychological dysfunction helps him to think outside of the box, but this same dysfunction has impaired Wile E’s emotional development, leaving him trapped inside another box. A mature individual would have found other, more meaningful purposes in life. The results of Wile E’s arrested growth as a person severely detracts from his quality of life, which we see evidenced every time he gets smooshed flat, burned to a crisp, falls off a cliff, or falls victim to some other tragic and hilarious mishap.

Surely there are alternative food sources in this universe. Wile E’s fixation on eating Roadrunner has caused him to forsake a Cosmos of infinite possibilities. His addiction has crippled his thought processes and reduced him to a Sisyphus archetype, forever pushing the stone up the hill. Wile E, trapped by his own obsession, applies his scientific reasoning to such a never-ending task with the same non-result.

A cartoon character with Wile E’s brilliance could work for the common welfare of all toons everywhere. His mastery of mechanical and electrical engineering could be put to use… uh… filling some basic necessity of toon life. You know, building safer mallets or ending toon-hunger or something.

Then again, I am in no position to criticize. I have never found myself so passionately bound up in a cause that I would subject myself to the abuses Wile E. Coyote brushes off so easily, jumping back into his purpose with all of his heart. I have not the endurance, the sheer strength of will, or the spirit to endlessly pursue what I felt was right to the fantastic degree Wile E pursues his prey. There is a sublime, romantic simplicity in Wile E’s single mindedness, and a nobility in his dedication to his cause.

Perhaps there is an underlying wisdom as well. Maybe Wile E has come to understand that it’s not the having, but the getting that’s important. The Road Runner is Wile E’s ultimate truth, always just out of his reach, like a Scientist seeking all of the answers to existence. Maybe it’s not the Road Runner that Wile E lives for, but rather the chase that he enjoys so much.

I think there might be a lesson there for us all to ponder.

Meep. Meep.