Seeks $250 million fines from radio stations, money to go to National Public Radio
August 13, 2009
WorldNetDaily
WASHINGTON – The new “chief diversity officer” for the Federal Communications Commission believes the so-called “Fairness Doctrine” was never repealed and advocates crippling $250 million fines for radio stations whose programming does not meet with the government’s approval, charges the author of a book on the end of free speech in America.
“Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski recently appointed Mark Lloyd, a former senior fellow at the George Soros-funded Center for American Progress, to be the FCC’s ‘chief diversity officer,'” says Brad O’Leary, author of “Shut Up America: The End of Free Speech.” “Lloyd is a proponent of the ‘Fairness Doctrine’ and recently wrote that the doctrine, and other regulatory tools such as localism and diversity mandates, should be employed by the FCC to limit the number of conservative voices on the air and supplant them with liberal voices. He also suggests fining conservative radio stations up to $250 million and giving the proceeds to the government-subsidized Corporation for Public Broadcasting.”
O’Leary cites a a paper Lloyd co-authored in 2007 for the Center for American Progress that urges the FCC to “balance” the airwaves through shortened broadcast license terms, diversity mandates and strict localism rules. In that report, Lloyd says the “Fairness Doctrine” was never actually repealed and is still enforceable today…
…”According to Lloyd, the success of conservative talk radio, and the failure of liberal talk radio, is not because conservative talk radio is more popular with radio listeners, but rather, it is indicative of a market failure in need of a regulatory fix,” says O’Leary. “To limit the number of conservative voices on the air, Lloyd prescribes shortening broadcast license terms from eight to three years, and allowing ‘local community leaders’ and activists to weigh-in on whether or not a station’s license should be renewed. He also proposes creating regulations to increase broadcast ownership diversity ‘both in terms of the race/ethnicity and gender of the owners.'”
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