Obama's War on Talk Radio

by Dick Morris & Eileen McGann: Obama’s liberal philosophy dictates that when the news is bad, shoot the messenger. The newest data from Arbitron, the company charged with measuring the size of radio audiences, suggests that listenership to hip hop, inner city, and minority radio has been overstated in the past and that the popularity of conservative talk radio has been under-reported. . . .

The opening barrage in Obama’s efforts to reign in talk radio was fired by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) this week when its acting Chairman Michael J. Copps announced an investigation of Arbitron’s radio measuring technology . . . . What is really at work here is an effort by the FCC to stack the deck to help left-wing and minority stations earn higher advertising revenues than those to which their real market share would entitle them. Solicitous of the financial viability of its liberal allies on radio and anxious to undermine the balance sheets of conservative stations, the FCC is lending itself to the president’s political agenda.

This investigation is, of course, only the first shot of the war against conservative radio. Soon the FCC will try to strip right wing stations of their licenses or impose fines on them payable to National Public Radio. In our forthcoming book, Catastrophe, we explain how this offensive will work and what will be its likely consequences.

But the opening salvo has been fired by the FCC which is willingly lending itself to stations with Democratic bias in an effort to swell their advertising revenues and to stop the growth of talk radio. Because the FCC will do much more to try to destroy the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, and Neil Boortz, we must be vigilant if we hope to keep free speech alive, even if it comes from the right side of the stage.

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Tags: Barack Obama, bias, Dick Morris, Eileen McGann, FCC, liberal, talk radio To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!