Orson Scott Card wrote:An open letter to the local daily paper -- almost every local daily paper in America:

I remember reading All the President's Men and thinking: That's journalism. You do what it takes to get the truth and you lay it before the public, because the public has a right to know.

This housing crisis didn't come out of nowhere. It was not a vague emanation of the evil Bush administration.

It was a direct result of the political decision, back in the late 1990s, to loosen the rules of lending so that home loans would be more accessible to poor people. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were authorized to approve risky loans.

What is a risky loan? It's a loan that the recipient is likely not to be able to repay.

The goal of this rule change was to help the poor -- which especially would help members of minority groups. But how does it help these people to give them a loan that they can't repay? They get into a house, yes, but when they can't make the payments, they lose the house -- along with their credit rating.

They end up worse off than before.

This was completely foreseeable and in fact many people did foresee it. One political party, in Congress and in the executive branch, tried repeatedly to tighten up the rules. The other party blocked every such attempt and tried to loosen them.

Furthermore, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were making political contributions to the very members of Congress who were allowing them to make irresponsible loans. (Though why quasi-federal agencies were allowed to do so baffles me. It's as if the Pentagon were allowed to contribute to the political campaigns of Congressmen who support increasing their budget.)

Isn't there a story here? Doesn't journalism require that you who produce our daily paper tell the truth about who brought us to a position where the only way to keep confidence in our economy was a $700 billion bailout? Aren't you supposed to follow the money and see which politicians were benefitting personally from the deregulation of mortgage lending?

I have no doubt that if these facts had pointed to the Republican Party or to John McCain as the guilty parties, you would be treating it as a vast scandal. "Housing-gate," no doubt. Or "Fannie-gate."

Instead, it was Senator Christopher Dodd and Congressman Barney Frank, both Democrats, who denied that there were any problems, who refused Bush administration requests to set up a regulatory agency to watch over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and who were still pushing for these agencies to go even further in promoting subprime mortgage loans almost up to the minute they failed.

As Thomas Sowell points out in a TownHall.com essay entitled Do Facts Matter? "Alan Greenspan warned them four years ago. So did the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers to the President. So did Bush's Secretary of the Treasury."

These are facts. This financial crisis was completely preventable. The party that blocked any attempt to prevent it was ... the Democratic Party. The party that tried to prevent it was ... the Republican Party.

Yet when Nancy Pelosi accused the Bush administration and Republican deregulation of causing the crisis, you in the press did not hold her to account for her lie. Instead, you criticized Republicans who took offense at this lie and refused to vote for the bailout!

What? It's not the liar, but the victims of the lie who are to blame?

Now let's follow the money ... right to the presidential candidate who is the number-two recipient of campaign contributions from Fannie Mae.

And after Freddie Raines, the CEO of Fannie Mae who made $90 million while running it into the ground, was fired for his incompetence, one presidential candidate's campaign actually consulted him for advice on housing.

If that presidential candidate had been John McCain, you would have called it a major scandal and we would be getting stories in your paper every day about how incompetent and corrupt he was.

But instead, that candidate was Barack Obama, and so you have buried this story, and when the McCain campaign dared to call Raines an "adviser" to the Obama campaign -- because that campaign had sought his advice -- you actually let Obama's people get away with accusing McCain of lying, merely because Raines wasn't listed as an official adviser to the Obama campaign.

You would never tolerate such weasely nit-picking from a Republican.

If you who produce our local daily paper actually had any principles, you would be pounding this story, because the prosperity of all Americans was put at risk by the foolish, short-sighted, politically selfish, and possibly corrupt actions of leading Democrats, including Obama.

If you who produce our local daily paper had any personal honor, you would find it unbearable to let the American people believe that somehow Republicans were to blame for this crisis.

There are precedents. Even though President Bush and his administration never said that Iraq sponsored or was linked to 9/11, you could not stand the fact that Americans had that misapprehension -- so you pounded us with the fact that there was no such link. (Along the way, you created the false impression that Bush had lied to them and said that there was a connection.)

If you had any principles, then surely right now, when the American people are set to blame President Bush and John McCain for a crisis they tried to prevent, and are actually shifting to approve of Barack Obama because of a crisis he helped cause, you would be laboring at least as hard to correct that false impression.

Your job, as journalists, is to tell the truth. That's what you claim you do, when you accept people's money to buy or subscribe to your paper.

But right now, you are consenting to or actively promoting a big fat lie -- that the housing crisis should somehow be blamed on Bush, McCain, and the Republicans. You have trained the American people to blame everything bad -- even bad weather -- on Bush, and they are responding as you have taught them to.

If you had any personal honor, each reporter and editor would be insisting on telling the truth -- even if it hurts the election chances of your favorite candidate.

Because that's what honorable people do. Honest people tell the truth even when they don't like the probable consequences. That's what honesty means. That's how trust is earned.

Barack Obama is just another politician, and not a very wise one. He has revealed his ignorance and naivete time after time -- and you have swept it under the rug, treated it as nothing.

Meanwhile, you have participated in the borking of Sarah Palin, reporting savage attacks on her for the pregnancy of her unmarried daughter -- while you ignored the story of John Edwards's own adultery for many months.

So I ask you now: Do you have any standards at all? Do you even know what honesty means?

Is getting people to vote for Barack Obama so important that you will throw away everything that journalism is supposed to stand for?

You might want to remember the way the National Organization of Women threw away their integrity by supporting Bill Clinton despite his well-known pattern of sexual exploitation of powerless women. Who listens to NOW anymore? We know they stand for nothing; they have no principles.

That's where you are right now.

It's not too late. You know that if the situation were reversed, and the truth would damage McCain and help Obama, you would be moving heaven and earth to get the true story out there.

If you want to redeem your honor, you will swallow hard and make a list of all the stories you would print if it were McCain who had been getting money from Fannie Mae, McCain whose campaign had consulted with its discredited former CEO, McCain who had voted against tightening its lending practices.

Then you will print them, even though every one of those true stories will point the finger of blame at the reckless Democratic Party, which put our nation's prosperity at risk so they could feel good about helping the poor, and lay a fair share of the blame at Obama's door.

You will also tell the truth about John McCain: that he tried, as a Senator, to do what it took to prevent this crisis. You will tell the truth about President Bush: that his administration tried more than once to get Congress to regulate lending in a responsible way.

This was a Congress-caused crisis, beginning during the Clinton administration, with Democrats leading the way into the crisis and blocking every effort to get out of it in a timely fashion.

If you at our local daily newspaper continue to let Americans believe --and vote as if -- President Bush and the Republicans caused the crisis, then you are joining in that lie.

If you do not tell the truth about the Democrats -- including Barack Obama -- and do so with the same energy you would use if the miscreants were Republicans -- then you are not journalists by any standard.

You're just the public relations machine of the Democratic Party, and it's time you were all fired and real journalists brought in, so that we can actually have a daily newspaper in our city.

PanamaG wrote:

Orson Scott Card wrote:
You will also tell the truth about John McCain: that he tried, as a Senator, to do what it took to prevent this crisis. You will tell the truth about President Bush: that his administration tried more than once to get Congress to regulate lending in a responsible way.

I'm glad I deregulated

Chimera_Calvin wrote:Is it just that the lily-livered, bleeding heart, liberal (ooh, there's a bad word...) media are part of the evil Democratic publicity machine?

Or is it simply that newspapers like to be on the winning side?

Its amusing how on this side of the pond the Sun newspaper (its a stretch to call this piece of bog roll a newspaper, but hey, for the purpose of the argument) was traditionally a very right-wing, tubthumping, nationalistic paper just until the Conservative party's fortunes declined severely in the late 90's.
At which point they switched to become staunch supporters of Tony Blair and 'new labour'. Here we are a decade later, Labour are rapidly going down and all of a sudden the paper is getting all fuzzy over the Tories again.


Orson Scott Card is absolutely right regarding the appaling standards of journalism - but its not because of some overaching idealism. They just want to back a winner.

Subprime Suspects
The right blames the credit crisis on poor minority homeowners. This is not merely offensive, but entirely wrong.By Daniel Gross | Newsweek Web Exclusive
Oct 7, 2008 | Updated: 12:58 p.m. ET Oct 7, 2008

We've now entered a new stage of the financial crisis: the ritual assigning of blame. It began in earnest with Monday's congressional roasting of Lehman Brothers CEO Richard Fuld, and continued on Tuesday with Capitol Hill solons delving into the failure of AIG. On the Republican side of Congress, in the right-wing financial media (which is to say the financial media), and in certain parts of the op-ed-o-sphere, there's a consensus emerging that the whole mess should be laid at the feet of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the failed mortgage giants, and the Community Reinvestment Act, a law passed during the Carter administration. The CRA, which was amended in the 1990s and this decade, requires banks—which had a long, distinguished history of not making loans to minorities—to make more efforts to do so.

The thesis is laid out almost daily on The Wall Street Journal editorial page and in the National Review. Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer provides an excellent example, writing that "much of this crisis was brought upon us by the good intentions of good people." He continues: "For decades, starting with Jimmy Carter's Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, there has been bipartisan agreement to use government power to expand homeownership to people who had been shut out for economic reasons or, sometimes, because of racial and ethnic discrimination. What could be a more worthy cause? But it led to tremendous pressure on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—which in turn pressured banks and other lenders—to extend mortgages to people who were borrowing over their heads. That's called subprime lending. It lies at the root of our current calamity." The subtext: if only Congress didn't force banks to lend money to poor minorities, the Dow would be well on its way to 36,000. Or, as Fox Business Channel's Neil Cavuto put it: "I don't remember a clarion call that said: Fannie and Freddie are a disaster. Loaning to minorities and risky folks is a disaster."

Let me get this straight. Investment banks and insurance companies run by centimillionaires blow up, and it's the fault of Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and poor minorities?

These arguments are generally made by people who read the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal, and ignore the rest of the paper—economic know-nothings whose opinions are informed mostly by ideology and, occasionally, by prejudice. Let's be honest. Fannie and Freddie, which didn't make subprime loans but did buy subprime loans made by others, were part of the problem. Poor congressional oversight was part of the problem. Banks that sought to meet CRA requirements by indiscriminately doling out loans to minorities may have been part of the problem. But none of these issues is the cause of the problem. Not by a long shot. From the beginning, subprime has been a symptom, not a cause. And the notion that the Community Reinvestment Act is somehow responsible for poor lending decisions is absurd.

Here's why.

The Community Reinvestment Act applies to depository banks. But many of the institutions that spurred the massive growth of the subprime market weren't regulated banks. They were outfits such as Argent and American Home Mortgage, which were generally not regulated by the Federal Reserve or other entities that monitored compliance with CRA. These institutions worked hand in glove with Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, entities to which the CRA likewise didn't apply. There's much more. As Barry Ritholtz notes in his fine rant, the CRA didn't force mortgage companies to offer loans for no-money down, or to throw underwriting standards out the window, or to encourage mortgage brokers to aggressively seek out new markets. Nor did the CRA force the credit-rating agencies to slap high-grade ratings on subprime debt.

Second, many of the biggest flameouts in real estate have had nothing to do with subprime lending. WCI Communities, builder of highly amenitized condos in Florida (no subprime purchasers welcome there), filed for bankruptcy in August. Very few of the tens of thousands of now-surplus condominiums in Miami were conceived to be marketed to subprime borrowers, or minorities—unless you count rich Venezuelans and Colombians as minorities. The multi-year plague that has been documented in brilliant detail at IrvineHousingBlog is playing out in one of the least subprime housing markets in the nation.

Third, lending money to poor people and minorities isn't inherently risky. There's plenty of evidence that in fact it's not that risky at all. That's what we've learned from several decades of microlending programs, at home and abroad, with their very high repayment rates. And as The New York Times recently reported, Nehemiah Homes, a long-running initiative to build homes and sell them to the working poor in subprime areas of New York's outer boroughs, has a repayment rate that lenders in Greenwich, Conn., would envy. In 27 years, there have been fewer than 10 defaults on the project's 3,900 homes. That's a rate of 0.25 percent.

On the other hand, lending money recklessly to obscenely rich white guys, such as Richard Fuld of Lehman Brothers, or Jimmy Cayne of Bear Stearns, can be really risky. In fact, it's even more risky, since they have a lot more borrowing capacity. And, here, again, it's difficult to imagine how Jimmy Carter could be responsible for the supremely poor decision-making seen in the financial system. I await the Krauthammer column in which he points out the specific provision of the Community Reinvestment Act that forced Bear Stearns to run with an absurd leverage ratio of 33:1, that instructed Bear Stearns hedge-fund managers to blow up hundreds of millions of their clients money, and that required its septuagenarian CEO to play bridge while his company ran into trouble. Perhaps Neil Cavuto knows which CRA clause required Lehman Brothers to borrow hundreds of billions of dollars in short-term debt in the capital markets and then buy tens of billions of dollars of commercial real estate at the top of the market. I can't find it. Did AIG plunge into the credit-default swaps business with abandon because ACORN members picketed its offices? Please. How about the hundreds of billions of dollars of leveraged loans—loans banks committed to private equity firms that wanted to conduct leveraged buyouts of retailers, restaurant companies, and industrial firms? Many of those are going bad now, too. Is that Bill Clinton's fault?

Look. There was a culture of stupid, reckless lending, of which Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the subprime lenders were an integral part. But the dumb lending virus originated in Greenwich, Ct., midtown Manhattan, and Southern California, not Eastchester, Brownsville, and Washington. Investment banks created a demand for subprime loans because they saw it as a new asset class that they could dominate. They made subprime loans for the same reason they made other loans: They could get paid for making the loans, for turning them into securities, and for trading them—frequently using borrowed capital.

At Monday's hearing, Republican Rep. John Mica of Florida gamely tried to pin Lehman's demise on Fannie and Freddie. After comparing Lehman's small political contributions to Fannie and Freddie's much larger ones, Mica asked Fuld what role Fannie and Freddie's failure played in Lehman's demise. Fuld's response: "de minimis."

Lending money to poor people doesn't make you poor. Lending money poorly to rich people does.

Misunderstanding Credit and Housing Crises: Blaming the CRA, GSEs
Thursday, October 02, 2008 | 07:00 AM

"It's telling that, amid all the recent recriminations, even lenders have not fingered CRA. That's because CRA didn't bring about the reckless lending at the heart of the crisis. Just as sub-prime lending was exploding, CRA was losing force and relevance. And the worst offenders, the independent mortgage companies, were never subject to CRA -- or any federal regulator. Law didn't make them lend. The profit motive did."

-Robert Gordon, American Prospect

I have been meaning to get back to this issue, but events in the market have kept me a tad busy.

Making the rounds amongst a certain subset of wingnuts on CNBC, at IBD and other selfconfoozled folks has been the meme that the entire housing and credit crisis traces to the the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) of 1977. An alternative zombie myth is the credit crisis is due to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. A 1999 article from the New York Times about the GSE's role in subprime mortgages has been circulating as if its the rosetta stone of the credit crisis.

These memes have become a rallying cry -- cognitive dissonance writ large -- of those folks who have been pushing for greater and greater deregulation, and are now attempting to disown the results of their handiwork.

I feel compelled to set the record straight about this pseudo-intellectual detritus. As we have painstakingly discussed over the past few years, there were many direct and indirect causes of the current financial mess.

Let's clarify the causes of current circumstances. Ask yourself the following questions about the impact of the Community Reinvestment Act and/or the role of Fannie & Freddie:

• Did the 1977 legislation, or any other legislation since, require banks to not verify income or payment history of mortgage applicants?

• 50% of subprime loans were made by mortgage service companies not subject comprehensive federal supervision; another 30% were made by banks or thrifts which are not subject to routine supervision or examinations. How was this caused by either CRA or GSEs ?

• What about "No Money Down" Mortgages (0% down payments) ? Were they required by the CRA? Fannie? Freddie?

• Explain the shift in Loan to value from 80% to 120%: What was it in the Act that changed this traditional lending requirement?

• Did any Federal legislation require real estate agents and mortgage writers to use the same corrupt appraisers again and again? How did they manage to always come in at exactly the purchase price, no matter what?

• Did the CRA require banks to develop automated underwriting (AU) systems that emphasized speed rather than accuracy in order to process the greatest number of mortgage apps as quickly as possible?

• How exactly did legislation force Moody's, S&Ps and Fitch to rate junk paper as Triple AAA?

• What about piggy back loans? Were banks required by Congress to lend the first mortgage and do a HELOC for the down payment -- at the same time?

• Internal bank memos showed employees how to cheat the system to get poor mortgages prospects approved that shouldn't have been: Titled How to Get an "Iffy" loan approved at JPM Chase. (Was circulating that memo also a FNM/FRE/CRA requirement?)



• The four biggest problem areas for housing (by price decreases) are: Phoenix, Arizona; Las Vegas, Nevada; Miami, Florida, and San Diego, California. Explain exactly how these affluent, non-minority regions were impacted by the Community Reinvesment Act ?

• Did the GSEs require banks to not check credit scores? Assets? Income?

• What was it about the CRA or GSEs that mandated fund managers load up on an investment product that was hard to value, thinly traded, and poorly understood

• What was it in the Act that forced banks to make "interest only" loans? Were "Neg Am loans" also part of the legislative requirements also?

• Consider this February 2003 speech by Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozlilo at the American Bankers National Real Estate Conference. He advocated zero down payment mortgages -- was that a CRA requirement too, or just a grab for more market share, and bad banking?

The answer to all of the above questions is no, none, and nothing at all.

The CRA is not remotely one of the proximate causes of the current credit crunch, Housing collapse,and mortgage debacle. As I detailed in Barron's, there is plenty of things to be angry at D.C. about -- but this ain't one of them.

If you were to ask me to reveal the prime causative factor for the Housing boom, I would point you to Fed Chairman Greenspan taking rates to 1%, and then leaving them there for a year. The prime factor in the bust was nonfeasance on the Fed's part in supervising bank lending, allowing banks to give money to people who couldn't possibly pay it back.

The root legislative cause of the credit crisis was excessive deregulation. From exempting derivatives from regulation (2000 Commodities Futures Modernization Act) to failing to adequately oversee ratings agencies that slapped a triple AAA on junk paper, the pendulum swung too far away from reasonable oversight. By taking the refs off of the field and erroneously expecting market participants could self-regulate, the powers that be in DC gave the players on Wall Street enough rope to hang themselves with -- which they promptly did.

There are too many people who are trying to duck responsibility for the current mess, and seeking to place blame elsewhere. I find this to be terribly important, as we seek to repair the damage amidst an economic crisis. Rather than objectively evaluate the present crisis in an attempt to craft an appropriate response, the partisan hacks are trying to obscure the causes of the current situation. Like burglars trying to destroy the surveillance tape, they are all too aware of their role in the present debacle.

Shame on them for their foolishness or cowardice.

Whenever I see a CRA proponent blathering, I have a "Star Trek moment." That's when Captain Kirk proves to some random alien computer that its basic programming is logically inconsistent. It's the AI (artificial intelligence) version of cognitive dissonance. The computer, recognizing the fraud its entire existence was based upon, seeing the futility of its belief system, at least has the dignity to blow itself up. No such luck with the wingnuts, who merely move on to their next piece of spin . . .

"You can fool some of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time. That's usually enough."

-MILTON BERLE

~~~

Note in the Sources section, we have a few subtopics: "Sources" is what I use to show where data, quotes and charts are from. "Previously" discusses commentary on this subject we have written in the past. "Related" is a good jumping off point for further reading; lastly, Consistently Wrong is where we point out the willfully misleading tripe written by people who should know better, but publish nonsense anyway. In the case where it appears some are trying to mislead the public, the least we can do is call them out.

>

Previously:
A Memo Found in the Street
Uncle Sam the enabler
BARRY L. RITHOLTZ
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2008
http://online.barrons.com/article/SB122246742997580395.html
Download A Memo Found.pdf (PDF)

The Ongoing Impact of the Housing Sector
Barry Ritholtz
Investor Insight, Aug 27 2007, 11:50 AM
http://www.investorsinsight.com/blogs/john_mauldins_outside_the_box/archive/2007/08/27/the-ongoing-impact-of-the-housing-sector.aspx

Real Estate and the Post-Crash Economy
Barry Ritholtz
Thoughts from the Frontline,December 29, 2006
http://www.2000wave.com/article.asp?id=mwo122906

>

Related:
Community Reinvestment Act had nothing to do with subprime crisis
Aaron Pressman
BusinessWeek, September 29
http://www.businessweek.com/investing/insights/blog/archives/2008/09/community_reinv.html

It's Still Not CRA
Ellen Seidman
New America Foundation, September 22, 2008 - 9:36pm
http://www.newamerica.net/blog/asset-building/2008/its-still-not-cra-7222

“The Community Reinvestment Act: Thirty Years of Accomplishments, But Challenges Remain”
Prepared Testimony of Michael S. Barr
Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School
Before the Committee on Financial Services
U.S. House of Representatives, February 13, 2008
http://tinyurl.com/CRA-Michael-S-Barr-testimony

The GOP Blames the Victim
Capitalism sure is fragile if subprime borrowers can ruin it.
THOMAS FRANK
WSJ, OCTOBER 1, 2008
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122282690823092989.html

Did Liberals Cause the Sub-Prime Crisis?
Robert Gordon
The American Prospect, April 7, 2008
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=did_liberals_cause_the_subprime_crisis

After the Deal, the Focus Will Shift to Regulation
FLOYD NORRIS
NYT September 28, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/29/business/29norris.html

>

Consistently Wrong:
Don't Blame the Markets
JERRY BOWYER
NY Sun, April 18, 2008
http://www.nysun.com/opinion/dont-blame-the-markets/74903/

How A Clinton-Era Rule Rewrite Made Subprime Crisis Inevitable
TERRY JONES
INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY, September 24, 2008 4:30 PM
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=307149667289804

Wingnuttery on CNBC
TBP, Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Michelle Caruso Caberra
http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2008/09/wingnuttery-on.html

IT’S NOT JUST THE LENDERS
There has been plenty of talk about “predatory lending,” but “predatory borrowing” may have been the bigger problem.
TYLER COWEN
NYT, January 13, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/business/13view.html

gorgon wrote:
McCain is going to lose because he deserves to lose. Play better next time and maybe you'll get my vote.

Chimera_Calvin wrote:Is it just that the lily-livered, bleeding heart, liberal (ooh, there's a bad word...) media are part of the evil Democratic publicity machine?

Or is it simply that newspapers like to be on the winning side?

Its amusing how on this side of the pond the Sun newspaper (its a stretch to call this piece of bog roll a newspaper, but hey, for the purpose of the argument) was traditionally a very right-wing, tubthumping, nationalistic paper just until the Conservative party's fortunes declined severely in the late 90's.
At which point they switched to become staunch supporters of Tony Blair and 'new labour'. Here we are a decade later, Labour are rapidly going down and all of a sudden the paper is getting all fuzzy over the Tories again.


Orson Scott Card is absolutely right regarding the appaling standards of journalism - but its not because of some overaching idealism. They just want to back a winner.

They shouldnt be on ANY side, winning or losing. That is not what the media is about and its appalling that you think its somehow okay for the media to take a side.

lord_sutekh wrote:The media only started choosing sides once FOX went "fair and balanced (but only if you're a Republican)". So, if you wanna lay the blame somewhere, I'm sure you can find Rupert Murdoch's address somewhere.

Mannahnin wrote:You know what? I like some of Card's work, but the man's an idiot when it comes to politics.

Lemartes wrote:At least when Wolf Blietzer? interviewed McCain he asked some tough questions and McCain acknowledeged that at the end of the interview.

lord_sutekh wrote:THAT's not their fault... but they did open the gate to openly partisan reporting masquerading as journalism. Once the Rubicon is crossed, there's no going back.

Hordini wrote:The media is and always has been about money. They are driven by ad revenue, and they will always do what they can to bring in more readers, listeners or viewers. They will release breaking news, with no regard for accuracy, just to be the first with a new story of some sort.

The idea that they are a public servant or a watchdog is ludicrous, and only put out to make the public feel warm and fuzzy about them.

djones520 wrote:

lord_sutekh wrote:The media only started choosing sides once FOX went "fair and balanced (but only if you're a Republican)". So, if you wanna lay the blame somewhere, I'm sure you can find Rupert Murdoch's address somewhere.

Right... it's all FOX's fault that CNN/MSNBC/ABC/NBC/NY Times/LA Times/Everything Else supports Senator Obama.

That makes perfect sense.

The blame game doesn't work. Most MSM (Main Stream Media) is running partisan journalism right now. They have no one to blame but themselves.

malfred wrote:

gorgon wrote:
McCain is going to lose because he deserves to lose. Play better next time and maybe you'll get my vote.

Only on Dakka.

CNSNews.com
Democratic Senator Tells Conservative Radio Station He’d Re-impose Fairness Doctrine--on Them
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
By Pete Winn, Senior Writer/Editor & Matthew Cover




Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.)
(CNSNews.com) – A prominent liberal Democratic senator, while being interviewed on a conservative talk radio station Tuesday, said he hopes a new administration and Congress will re-impose the Fairness Doctrine on radio and TV broadcasters.

Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) told radio station 770 AM KKOB in Albuquerque, N.M., that he didn’t know if Democrats in Congress will try to re-impose the Fairness Doctrine next year – but he would certainly like them to.

Bingaman told the station he would support re-imposition of the regulation – which was rescinded in 1987 – on the station.

The Fairness Doctrine, which was first implemented in 1949 by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), technically forced broadcasters to "afford reasonable opportunity for the discussion of conflicting views of public importance." Critics call it a “gag rule” on broadcasters.

Here’s a transcript of part of the interview with 770AM KKOB afternoon host Jim Villanucci:

Villanucci: You would want this radio station to have to change?

Bingaman: I would. I would want this station and all stations to have to present a balanced perspective and different points of view instead of always hammering away at one side of the political –

Villanucci: I mean in this market, for instance, you’ve got KKOB. If you want liberal talk, you’ve got Air America in this market, you’ve got NPR, you’ve got satellite radio – there’s a lefty talk station and a rightie talk station. Do you think there are people who aren’t able to find a viewpoint that is in sync with what they believe?

Bingaman: Well I guess my thought is that talk radio and media generally should have a higher calling than just reflect a particular point of view. I think they should use their authority to try to – their broadcast power to present an informed discussion of public issues. KKOB used to be a, used to live under the Fairness Doctrine, and every –

Villanucci: Yeah, we played music, I believe – Bingaman: But there was a lot of talk also, at least it seemed to me, and there were a lot of talk stations that seemed to do fine. The airwaves are owned by private companies at this point. There’s a license to private companies to operate broadcast stations, and that’s the way it should be. All I’m saying is that for many, many years we operated under a Fairness Doctrine in this country, and I think the country was well-served. I think the public discussion was at a higher level and more intelligent in those days than it has become since.

In an interview with CNSNews.com Wednesday, Villanucci said that Bingaman was adamant about the need to balance conservative voices with liberals on the airwaves – and that his listeners called for four hours to oppose such a move.

“I guess the shocking part was to have a senator sitting across the table from me, basically threatening my job and my show on my show – (it) was kind of stunning,” the talk show host said.

Bingaman’s office confirmed that the senator supports efforts to reinstate the regulation, but Bingaman press secretary Jude McCartin said her boss has no plans to introduce any legislation himself toward that end.

Bingaman, by the way, is the chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee – which does not have jurisdiction over communication issues.

The Democratic Party platform in 2000 called for the re-institution of the doctrine, and prominent congressional Democrats are on record in support of it.

In July, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) told CNSNews.com that both he and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) strongly supported legislation to reactivate the regulation, which many conservatives say is intended to silence conservative talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh.

A bill to permanently ban re-imposition of the Fairness Doctrine, sponsored by Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), will not be voted on this year, according to Hoyer.

In June, Broadcasting and Cable magazine reported a campaign spokesman for Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) -- press secretary Michael Ortiz -- as saying that the Democratic presidential candidate “does not support re-imposing the Fairness Doctrine on broadcasters."

Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), meanwhile, is on record in oppsition to bringing back the doctrine.