Dole Should Look at How One-Sided Talk Radio Is

If Sen. Bob Dole is serious about taking on the entertainment industry, he should expand his criticism to include talk radio. The bigoted propaganda spewed forth by its mainly right-wing hosts monopolizes the airwaves with one-sided commentary.

Right-wing radio may not yet be the moral abyss that Dole finds in film and rap music, but it deprives Americans of that longstanding tradition that he so proudly claims to support--the airing of both sides of an issue.

Newspapers have long encouraged opinions dissenting from their editorial policies. During the last few years a large group of self-styled conservatives, whose claim to space has been that they present a much-needed antidote to the so-called liberal press, have found their way into print.

But talk radio feels no obligation to present opposing points of view. So Rush Limbaugh airs from some 600 stations with his daily diatribe against the President, the First Lady, the members of the Cabinet and liberals. Each day he spins the news with little regard for the truth. There is no opposition, no countering of false information. Name-calling substitutes for informed discussion.

The right wing has forgotten that American radio stations do not own the airwaves. The people own them. Stations are merely granted a renewable franchise “to operate in the public interest.” In the past, the Federal Communications Commission insisted on a Fairness Doctrine. Since the airwaves belonged to the public, the people were entitled to hear both sides of an issue. If a person or group was attacked there was a right to respond.

Unfortunately, this rule was jettisoned in 1987 during the Reagan years by a compliant FCC that was taken over by the broadcasting industry.

In the first year of the Clinton Administration, Congress attempted to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine, with significant bipartisan support. Limbaugh energized his ditto-heads to fight the bill and Congress was snowed under with complaints from irate listeners who did not want fairness. They echoed, sheeplike, Limbaugh’s impassioned plea that the Fairness Doctrine would cripple talk radio.

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Limbaugh was joined by many station owners who wanted no regulation over their newfound source of wealth--white male talk radio--and by members of the National Religious Broadcasters Assn., who equated liberalism with godlessness and fairness with the devil incarnate.

Clinton’s FCC could still reinstate the Fairness Doctrine but, unfortunately, the FCC is a paper tiger, failing to exercise its licensing renewal power to enforce any fairness in broadcasting. With the exception of the chairman, the members show little inclination to exhibit any courage. Clinton’s two FCC appointees, both lawyers, have close connections to the industry. Not since President John F. Kennedy’s appointment of Newton Minow as head of the FCC has the agency displayed any leadership.

The answer to fanaticism on the right is simple. Dole and his Republican colleagues can use their legislative majority to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine and force radio stations to present all sides of controversial issues. If a person is attacked, that person would have a constitutional right to respond. And if presenting the truth kills talk radio, perhaps we’ll all be better off.