Bill Press’s professional life, such as it is, has been very complicated in recent years.
A longtime Democratic functionary in California and midlevel official in the Jerry Brown administration, he became a TV editorial commentator in Los Angeles when Ronald Reagan was president. That is the same sort of sinecure, now largely extinct in broadcasting, that catapulted the late Jesse Helms to the U.S. Senate from North Carolina; but Bill Press has been less fortunate. He ran in the Democratic primary for California insurance commissioner (and lost), chaired the California Democratic party (during the Pete Wilson era), and then settled on his current incarnation as an author of political potboilers (Spin This!, How the Republicans Stole Christmas, Bush Must Go) and designated liberal on cable shoutfests (Crossfire, The Spin Room, Buchanan and Press).
Until the other day, he was host of the morning drive-time “Bill Press Show” on OBAMA 1260 AM radio in Washington, D.C. That is, until the owner of OBAMA 1260 decided to end all political programming on his network and replace it with financial advice. Now, once again, Bill Press is looking for work. And he seems to have found it: He is writing a book about talk radio, and has embarked on a crusade to restore the Fairness Doctrine in broadcasting.
The reason, as he explained the other day in the Washington Post, is that talk radio is largely dominated by conservatives, while liberals are not only outnumbered, but scarcely heard on the air. This is not because left-wing radio hosts and their programs–Al Franken, for example, or Jim Hightower–have failed to find national audiences, but because (in Press’s words) “the only reason there’s not more competition on American airwaves is that the handful of companies that own most radio stations do everything they can to block it. In many markets . . . they join in providing no outlet for progressive talk.”
It is not often that a mere two sentences perfectly capture both the progressive rationale for reviving the late, unlamented Fairness Doctrine and the reason liberals flop on talk radio; but Bill Press, to his credit, has written them.
First, two propositions: Many progressives don’t believe in market forces; and most progressives–like most politicians–have decidedly mixed feelings about the First Amendment. From Bill Press’s perspective, the fact that left-wing talk radio has been largely unsuccessful is the fault not of left-wing talk radio but of Corporate America–or, as he describes them, “the handful of companies that own most radio stations.” Because Bill Press cannot imagine that listeners find him consistently resistible (as they seem to do) it must be the fault of the right-wing capitalists who own the radio stations and conspire to keep liberals like Bill Press off the air.
This is not only delusional, so far as the evidence is concerned, but represents a near-total misunder-standing of the corporate/capitalist mind. The truth, of course, is that if Barbara Boxer or Barney Frank or any other progressive, famous or obscure, had a radio talk show that garnered high ratings and earned millions in advertising revenue, “the handful of companies that own most radio stations” would be climbing over each other to sign them up. The idea that station owners would refrain from making money for ideological reasons is not only laughable, but insulting to the basic instincts of most people in business. Somebody who calls his radio station OBAMA 1260 is not going to collude with other owners to keep the airwaves liberal-free.
Which brings us to the Fairness Doctrine. Since the Democrats regained control of Congress in 2007 there has been increasing discussion of reviving the Fairness Doctrine–actually an FCC regulation, not an act of Congress–which was repealed in 1987. The ostensible reason for the Fairness Doctrine, instituted in 1934, was to ensure “balance” in the coverage of public issues; its practical effect was to banish nearly all discussion of public issues on radio and television for the next half-century. That is the reason why the doctrine was revoked 22 years ago, and why conservative talk radio has flourished ever since.
Now, the fact that conservatives have succeeded, and liberals failed, in this realm has driven Democrats to a notably anti-democratic position on the question. Here, for example, are declarations from two of the most egregiously partisan Democrats in the Senate, Dick Durbin of Illinois and Tom Harkin of Iowa. “I have this old-fashioned attitude,” says Durbin, “that when Americans hear both sides of the story, they’re in a better position to make a decision.” And Harkin, in his cruder, more direct fashion, recently told none other than Bill Press: “We gotta get the Fairness Doctrine back in law again.”
Of course, the reason Senators Durbin and Harkin and Debbie Stabenow of Michigan and Dianne Feinstein of California yearn to revive the Fairness Doctrine is that it would precipitate the end of conservative talk radio. And they have the power to do this. The FCC is theoretically empowered to demand “balance” (and punish transgressors) because the airwaves are public property, and Congress reserves the right to regulate what it claims.
That is why neither Dick Durbin nor Tom Harkin–nor even Bill Press–has expressed the slightest concern about “balance” or “both sides of the story” in, say, the nation’s daily newspapers or news magazines or in Hollywood or the book publishing trade. In the one place where conservatives have gained a foothold, and might even be said to dominate, congressional Democrats are determined to shut them down–and not by way of market forces, or competition, but through enabling legislation. So much for the First Amendment.
Philip Terzian is literary editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
