Give Dan Rather A Ticket
Negligence In The Airwaves
January 11, 2002
If Dan Rather and his broadcast media peers were driving on the nation’s highways in lieu of talking on the nation’s airwaves they would all have their licenses suspended for reckless endangerment. And they should!
After all, using the nation’s airwaves is a privilege, not a right. And accordingly, those who use these airwaves are subject to the regulation of the licensing authority in the interests of public safety and welfare.
“Absolutely not,” screams the network. “We (the networks) have a right to free speech and freedom of the press under the First Amendment.” While that may be true, it does not necessarily apply to the use of airwaves that are licensed and regulated by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
In the United States, there is a gray area between “Rights” and “Privileges”; the former being commonly thought of as an absolute and the latter as conditional. Rights are interpreted as absolute entitlements that are irrevocable. A Privilege is often viewed as a qualified Right; permission is granted to enjoy a specific entitlement under the constraints of certain conditions. This is not necessarily true for either term.
An oft-debated Right is that which is contained in the Second Amendment, the Right to Bear Arms. Yet, this Right is regulated and, once regulated, it becomes a privilege. As the Rhode Island Department of The Attorney General phrases it in the first sentence of their cover letter for an application for a permit to carry a pistol, “ By applying for a permit to carry a pistol or revolver with the Department of Attorney General, you are exercising your right….”. But, the closing sentence has miraculously altered this right, “Please exercise you privilege to carry a pistol or revolver in the State of Rhode Island responsibly, properly and safely.”
Although this does not sound unreasonable on the surface, whatever happened to the Second Amendment’s, “…the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”? A Right has definitely been downgraded to a privilege.
The Fourteenth Amendment, among others, guarantees citizens the right to travel within and between states unencumbered. However, every state in the union refers to the ability to drive on public roadways as a “privilege” which requires regulated licensing. In New York, it is clearly defined in the driver’s manual as your, “Driving privilege.” Connecticut begins its manual by noting, “Most of us know that driving is a privilege and comes with responsibilities.” California gets right to the point by framing the following in a bold border, “DRIVING IS A PRIVILEGE NOT A RIGHT.” Minnesota and the rest of the state governments agree.
In the case, Anderson v. Commissioner of Highways, State of Minnesota (1964), the court clearly found that, “Permission to operate a motor vehicle upon the public highways is not embraced with the term ‘civil rights’ and is in the nature of a license or privilege.” A further finding in the same case makes it very clear that, “While the privilege is a valuable one, and may not be unreasonably or arbitrarily taken away, its enjoyment depends upon compliance with conditions prescribed by law . . . in the interest of public safety and welfare.”
Historically, the courts have found that it is acceptable for a right to be converted into a privilege, and regulated, if it is in the interest of public safety and welfare. Limits have even been placed on the First Amendment right to free speech. In the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Schenck v. U.S. (1919), setting limits on the freedom of speech guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Junior, wrote: "The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic."
In spite of the insistence by Dan Rather and his peers that their “responsible” broadcast journalism is protected by the First Amendment and unalienable, this is not the case. The television networks are licensed and regulated in the interests of the public good by the FCC.
The Federal Communications Commission is an independent United States government agency, directly responsible to Congress. The FCC was established by the Communications Act of 1934 and is charged with regulating interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite and cable. The FCC's jurisdiction covers the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. possessions.
One notable instance of the FCC regulating the program content of the networks is the Children's Television Act of 1990. Consistent with the principles set forth in the First Amendment, Congress recognized that television has a significant impact on children, and that TV can be used as a tool to help young people learn specific skills, prepare for formal schooling and complement traditional education.
“With the Children’s TV Rules of 1996, the FCC issued a new set of standards designed to strengthen and implement the CTA. The rules for the first time laid out specific hours stations must air children’s educational programming. They sharpened the definition of educational programming itself, and adopted measures to improve public awareness of the programming.”
As is clear, the right of broadcast companies to use the nations airwaves is not a right but a privilege that is regulated by the government in the interests of public safety and welfare much like the right to bear arms and the right to drive. It is the obligation of the licensees (the networks) to use this privilege responsibly, properly and safely.
Now, along comes Bernard Goldberg, author of a new book, “BIAS: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News.” According to the Washington Post, Goldberg, “calls the CBS brass ‘a bunch of hypocrites’ so consumed by liberal bias that they reflexively slant the news. It's not every day that someone likens Dan Rather and CBS News to the Mafia. Or declares that the don in this case is The Dan, ‘who wanted me whacked’.”
Goldberg further alleges that, CBS News President Andrew Heyward once told him, “Look, Bernie, of course there's a liberal bias in the news. All the networks tilt left…If you repeat any of this, I'll deny it."
It really doesn’t matter if the networks tilt to the left or the right. The significant and troubling aspect is that a CBS correspondent of 28 years, a credible insider, blows the whistle on an almost conspiratorial attempt by the representatives of an FCC licensee to distort the news. In Nazi Germany, Joseph Goebbels’ version of distorting the news was very harmful and deadly propaganda.
By not reporting in a fair and unbiased manner, news broadcasters are, in effect, saturating the nation’s homes with propaganda. This is not in compliance with their obligation as licensees of a privilege to act responsibly, properly and safely. It is not in the best interests of public safety and welfare.
In an exchange with Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly, Dan Rather gives insight to his muddied version of honesty:
Bill O’Reilly: "I want to ask you flat out, do you think President Clinton’s an honest man?"
Dan Rather: "Yes, I think he’s an honest man."
O’Reilly: "Do you, really?"
Rather: "I do."
O’Reilly: "Even though he lied to Jim Lehrer’s face about the Lewinsky case?"
Rather: "Who among us has not lied about something?"
O’Reilly: "Well, I didn’t lie to anybody’s face on national television. I don’t think you have, have you?"
Rather: "I don’t think I ever have. I hope I never have. But, look, it’s one thing _ "
O’Reilly: "How can you say he’s an honest guy then?"
Rather: "Well, because I think he is. I think at core he’s an honest person. I know that you have a different view. I know that you consider it sort of astonishing anybody would say so, but I think you can be an honest person and lie about any number of things."
(Exchange on Fox News Channel’s The O’Reilly Factor, May 15.)
An excellent example of irresponsible network reporting, possibly inspired by political bias, is the 2000 Florida election night coverage of the Presidential race. At 7:00 p.m. EST most of the Florida polls were closed. Between 7:50 – 8:00 p.m. the Associated Press, CNN, CBS, Fox, NBC and ABC declared Al Gore the victor even though some polls in the western part of the state were open until 8:00 p.m.
U.S. Representative Billy Tauzin, R-Louisiana, estimated that this network preemption of the Florida results could have cost George W. Bush up to 10,000 votes in Florida’s conservative northwestern panhandle region. “We are told that people waiting in line to vote actually turned around and went home when they heard that George Bush had not carried Florida.”
U.S. Representative Chris Cox, R-California, also asserted that the erroneous Florida network call suppressed votes for Bush in his state of California, “The fact that voter depression follows from knowledge that the race is over is what motivates our concern about early calls.”
Rep. Tauzin also notes that, “the network(s) hesitated to declare Bush the winner in nine states the GOP nominee won by at least six percent of the popular vote (those states were placed in the ‘too-close-too-call’ column)…there was no such delay for any state that Gore won by six percent or above…In short, the evidence is mounting that there was some kind of bias in this system. Now, was it intentional bias or was it accidental bias?”
The offenses committed by the FCC licensed networks are as serious as drunken driving or shooting a gun at somebody. What was at stake in Florida was the election of this country’s next President. The importance of that election has become all too clear in the light of September 11.
If the privilege to drive and the right to own a firearm can be regulated for the benefit of public welfare and safety, then the privilege to use the nation’s airwaves should be regulated for the benefit of protecting the public from the corruption of biased reporting.
The networks should either “clean up their act” or have their FCC licenses revoked and transferred to new owners who will give the American people what they have a right to expect…unbiased reporting (commonly known as the truth).
But, don’t hold your breath. This nation’s government seems to be more concerned with the nicotine content of tobacco or Microsoft’s market share than with the truth.
If you think that keeping propaganda off of the regulated airwaves is not critically important, always remember that Hitler never killed anybody with a firearm in post World War I Germany. More people have died at the hands of propaganda than at the end of a gun’s barrel.
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