promise that things have about american politics
they did in nineteen eighty seven when ronald reagan stopped in foreseen what
is called the fairness doctrine but really it should have had a different
name has what it said was that if the radio or television station and nowadays
even cable cuz they use public rights away
a satellite these public rights away and i think this should universally plot
uh... but none of the does anymore anyways as academic but if they want to
have their license renewed every year they have to demonstrate that they have
programmed at least impart in the public interest in people used to think that
that meant public service announcement
but ided news in lansing michigan i know it's started in radio in nineteen sixty
eight ninety i did news from seventy one to seventy eight
in the end of the lights you know my instinct
and we had five people in his department for this little radio state was number
one station lands in the west little town
and country-western station
and the station lost money on that news operation vague date proudly lost money
in the news operation and we all knew in the news department this is all before
reagan stuff before since this was the seventies
we all knew that if we were caught talkin to the salespeople
we get fired
is that there was this firewall between the two
and and because that programming in the public interest met actually having news
i still you know get up at five o'clock the morning always i would go down to
the city all we get the police blotter we go across the street to the state
capital we didn't do the interviews and come back dot that's top-up week we were
doing news real good old-fashioned
dig it up news didn't matter if it ever never ties are
didn't you know week week if it was true we reported on a reagan said
as the longer necessary you can just make money
and then in oakland without making sure that the ninety six which was a
republican initiative uh... they're really put the nail into that the beauty
really we that was
i remember in eighty eight
when one not believe was eighty eight when c_b_s_ news was the first my benita
was the first network to say that they were putting their news division under
their entertainment vice president
and all three networks is to lose money on news that was the price of a station
that carry in your network and a m and i'm not an advocate of losing money on
my point is that they had bureaus all over the world they actually reported on
news
was assisted there's a trail
you have public airwaves
the public phones that this is a common
yeah it's no different than any other covers the public phones this
and we're gonna be the right to use these airwaves and the contract with you
with us
this you're gonna get this news that and then somewhere along the line people
started knowing and now we think n_b_c_ or c_b_s_ or a_b_c_ owns the way fairway
they don't we on the airways and we just allowed on to bastardized the process
uses not even recognizable
the new formula for news on on television uh... if you just
doing basically
into any channel it is the uh... the the interesting
looking walk the the policy wonk you know within
big glasses and the big hair
next to the you've got the end of the stars and tell you
that's the combination it doesn't matter
that they don't know along
it doesn't matter that they're not giving you the news
doesn't matter that they're not able to talk about a quarter rationing
that might be killing us
might be stealing from us they're not allowed to do that because the guys on
the fiftieth floor
say if you do that you're gonna lose your job and and this is my problem with
n_p_r_ now to of course i remember back in the uh... believe it was the eighties
um... uh... one npr was fully funded
by the u_s_ government they didn't have to worry about advertise they broke the
story of uh... was a cargill or knows a_d_m_ marcia daniel middle price-fixing
is and there is a three hundred million dollar penalty which is big money back
in those days indium got hit with a three million dollar fine opt for
price-fixing on commodities and and and npr had broke that story they done that
investigative journalism and now their sponsored by a_t_f_ quits that so with a
dial back that uh... you know the republicans in congress that okay let's
dial back some other support
they're no longer it's an article about the advertisers
you know hearing investigative journalism anymore i feed on the morning
unison ezola stand p_r_ in and in here's a guy for the heritage foundation dot
offering what supposed to be unbiased united summa cum competitor prices on
the other dalia without any notion of without any by the way you might want to
know a heritage foundation does this this in this
right in their republican right wing have organization no mention of that one
and not just that corporate
yes you know a corporate sponsor guys that you know hacks
and ben so basically what we've got now is we've got
this kind of sambhal once of
middle-of-the-road news in
the npr p_s_ bits it's not really and it's it's been a been badly contaminated
they've done really atwater did play the refs there
and then you've got basically three other thanks you've got
sort of progressive news msnbc and they are showing some point that you know
where we
say okay here's r_n_c_ were progresses
sort of conservative news foxnews basically in the right wing talk shows
and then you've got foxnews what's going to get the most eyeballs a_b_c_ n_b_c_
c_b_s_
insuring cancer about poppies tonight
is somebody bleeding at adelaide i know the old cliche you know i mean seriously
lately