Is cutting off phone-in callers to Limbaugh a violation of their A1 rights?

[wtmusic]

Clear Channel does not own the airwaves - the American people do. It's clear that Rush manipulates and misrepresents opinion by only airing callers who agree with his POV.

Although the genie is probably out of the bottle as far as a return to the original Fairness Doctrine, what about setting a mandatory "one-minute rule" allowing all phone-ins to have their say? Would it be constitutional?

"A license permits broadcasting, but the licensee has no constitutional right to be the one who holds the license or to monopolize a radio frequency to the exclusion of his fellow citizens. There is nothing in the First Amendment which prevents the Government from requiring a licensee to share his frequency with others.... It is the right of the viewers and listeners, not the right of the broadcasters, which is paramount."

Supreme Court Justice Byron White, in Red Lion Broadcasting Co. vs FCC, 1969

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine

[Warren Stupidity]

1. no of course not

you have no first amendment rights with respect to somebody else's radio show.

[wtmusic]

7. For thirty years the FCC disagreed with you

and democracy didn't fall apart.

[Warren Stupidity]

10. uh no they didn't.

There never was any regulation that prohibited cutting off a caller to a radio show, nor has any 1st amendment right as per the OP ever been established in any court.

[wtmusic]

13. Uh, yeah they did.

Familiarize yourself with the Fairness Doctrine and equal time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine

[Warren Stupidity]

14. Are you series?

Your OP claims a 1st amendment right to not have your call to Rush's show cut off. Please provide the data that documents where exactly the fairness doctrine (which by the way was a regulation and was not an expansion of or an itemization of 1st amendment rights) prohibited cutting off an on air phone call.

Here, I'll help this along as I suspect you will just provide links without context:
The Fairness Doctrine had two basic elements: It required broadcasters to devote some of their airtime to discussing controversial matters of public interest, and to air contrasting views regarding those matters. Stations were given wide latitude as to how to provide contrasting views: It could be done through news segments, public affairs shows or editorials. The doctrine did not require equal time for opposing views but required that contrasting viewpoints be presented.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine

[wtmusic]

15. Your statement: "you have no first amendment rights with respect to

someone else's radio show".

The Fairness Doctrine had two basic elements: It required broadcasters to devote some of their airtime to discussing controversial matters of public interest, and to air contrasting views regarding those matters. Stations were given wide latitude as to how to provide contrasting views: It could be done through news segments, public affairs shows or editorials. The doctrine did not require equal time for opposing views but required that contrasting viewpoints be presented.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine


Links with context. You are wrong.

[Warren Stupidity]

16. You have a series reading comprehension problem.

Your own cited text, identical to mine, does not establish any 1st amendment right at all and does not require broadcasters to not cut off callers. Other than these minor points, you do have a valid argument.

[wtmusic]

17. Consider reading the OP before posting.

"A license permits broadcasting, but the licensee has no constitutional right to be the one who holds the license or to monopolize a radio frequency to the exclusion of his fellow citizens. There is nothing in the First Amendment which prevents the Government from requiring a licensee to share his frequency with others.... It is the right of the viewers and listeners, not the right of the broadcasters, which is paramount."

Supreme Court Justice Byron White, in Red Lion Broadcasting Co. vs FCC, 1969

The Fairness Doctrine was upheld in that decision, and requiring broadcasters to not cut off phone-ins would be one way of "requiring a licensee to share his frequency with others". Now that we're up to speed, what's your opinion?

[Warren Stupidity]

21. Again: there is no 1st amendment right to not have your

phone call cut off. There could be a regulation that would not violate the first amendment that implemented such a requirement. The first amendment right in question here in your above post is that of the broadcast licensee to be free of government interference. You have mistaken a ruling that indicated that the fairness doctrine did not violate the first amendment rights of the broadcaster for a first amendment right to not have your phone call cut off. You have a reading comprehension problem, or you are simply too stubborn to admit that you are wrong on this.

[wtmusic]

22. I understand your distinction

but in fact it's not been ruled on, and is a matter of opinion.

If the airwaves are, in fact, public property, then why is cutting off callers any different than corralling protesters at the Republican Convention to an area where they can't be seen or heard?

[John Q. Citizen]

9. And the radio show has no freedom of the press rights to our airwaves. So Rush can

show on cable (if he has access to a cable system) but he has no right to our airwaves if we decide to change our terms of usage.

We can do whatever we want with our electromagnetic spectrum. In fact, we can control content broadcast on that spectrum if we decide it might be harmful.

[Warren Stupidity]

12. Oh absolutely - we own the airwaves and we can regulate them

as we see fit. However, there would still be no 1st amendment right to not have your phone call to some show cut off.

[John Q. Citizen]

23. But I imagine that a first amendment right might be construed based on the fact that

the medium used to disseminate the message is in the public realm.

In fact the fairness doctrine was in effect just to address these kinds of democratic and first amendment issues as regards the dissemination of speech.

[Warren Stupidity]

26. Think of the airwaves as if they were federal land.

Just because the government owns a national park doesn't mean you have the right to wander around that park unrestricted as if it were your property. You do not acquire property rights to national parks.

The fairness doctrine is indeed addressing the first amendment issue created when it was decided that radio broadcasts needed to be regulated. Leaping from there to 'Rush can't cut off my phone call' is a vast misreading of the issue. If Rush can't cut off my phone call, why can't I just show up on any broadcast show and demand to be heard for as long as I care to rant? Is it just call-ins that have this right to unfettered access? Suppose an American Idol contestant decides that she doesn't want to stop singing or stop appearing on the show and just moves herself right in as a regular. Why not? The fairness doctrine required stations to cover controversial issues and provide opposing viewpoints and that is all. It never required each individual show to be controversial or provide opposing viewpoints. Those opposing viewpoints were generally off on their own 2-minute quests all by themselves, and controversy was reflected in a very small number of shows.

Far more interesting to me is net neutrality. The internets do not suffer from limited bandwidth allocation and we can all be first amendment protected publishers of our own content and viewpoints, provided we have the minimal resources required to do so. It is vastly more important to make sure we can all be heard here, at least to me, than that through some vastly overreaching reinterpretation of the long discarded fairness doctrine Rush has to not hang up on the OP.

[wtmusic]

28. Good analogy

and think of Clear Channel as a logging company which has been granted 25% of the timber rights to cut down the trees therein.

[w4rma]

2. The Fairness Doctrine should be restored in it's original form. (nt)

[suston96]

3. You do have a right to buy or apply for your own radio license....good luck. nt

[wtmusic]

5. Airwaves go to the highest bidder? nt

[NeedleCast]

4. No

Otherwise it would be unconstitutional to hang up on telemarketers.

[PeaceNikki]

6. And the same would apply to left-wing radio?

I assume you want to apply this equal time rule to... I dunno, AAR, allowing the crazies to get on their soap-boxes regarding the president's birth certificate "Muslim agenda", etc?

:shrug:

Here's a thought: just change the channel.

[wtmusic]

11. Of course

There is not nearly as much censoring of RW call-in crazies on AAR already, but it's all good. They sound crazy anywhere.

[baldguy]

8. People have the right to phone anybody & voice their opinion on anything.

Limbaugh is irrelevant.

The real question is whether or not the licensee, meaning the station owner, by putting those opinions out over the public's airwaves is acting in the public interest. Certainly doing so without opposing opinions and regard to the truth is not.

[creeksneakers2]

18. There isn't enough time to put everybody on the radio

And some people aren't on for a reason. They are crazy or worse yet, boring.

[wtmusic]

20. In the sixties you'd get crazy people with rebuttals on TV

and it was always entertaining. No one doubted for a moment they were crazy.

Of course, they couldn't promote violence or shout obscenities, and their time was limited.

[timtom]

19. I'm convinced that the Father Coughlin diatribes should be re-broadcast

in the pursuit of "entereainment" (which is what Randi maintains that she and Rush are).

Just for the record, Father Coughlin was kicked off the air for his incendiary philippics but later bought air time and continued until he ran out of money.

[anonymous171]

24. No. nt

[prolesunited]

25. You have the right to free speech

Noone is required to provide you with the forum.

[wtmusic]

27. Should the American public be required to license 1/4 of US radio frequencies

to Clear Channel?

[prolesunited]

29. Still a free market

And that's not a monopoly.

[NoPasaran]

30. A1 rights?

What does this have to do with steak sauce?

[Still Sensible]

31. No it is not

just about every call-in program pre-screens callers. And you're free to start your own radio station if you want different views expressed... of course you'll need a license.