Jessica McBride: Liberals Want to Shut Up Blogs, Talk Radio

It’s a topic that we have frequently addressed, but Jessica McBride has a splendid article on attempts of liberals to censor talk radio and blogs.

She joins the blogswarm that has resulted from the rash attack of Bill Christofferson on Charlie Sykes. Sykes had the temerity to run a spot ad for school choice that included the voices of inner city black kids pleading for the right to continue in their choice schools.

Christofferson said this was some sort of illegal corporate contribution to a lobbying effort.

But McBride also discusses attacks on talk radio in Madison and Washington State.

In both cases the claim was made that when talk radio promotes a cause they are engaged in illegal lobbying or making some sort of campaign contribution.

In Washington, prosecutors went after two talk show hosts.

And in Congress, Democrats have sought to bring back the Fairness Doctrine, which would require all broadcasting stations to match each conservative host or viewpoint with a liberal viewpoint. While this might sound “fair,” it would never be used to require that liberal newspapers (who aren’t subject to the doctrine at all) balance each liberal editorial with a conservative editorial. Nor could it touch broadcast outlets when they claim to be “reporting” news, but do so in a slanted way.

It is, quite simply, an attempt to gut conservative talk radio, while leaving the bastions of liberal bias (broadcast networks, liberal newspapers, news magazines like Time and Newsweek) entirely alone.