Whatever happened to radio broadcasting in the public interest?

[alp227]

During a brief break a few minutes before 7AM on local NPR station KQED I flipped my dial radio to the AM and peek at local hate talk station KSFO. The morning show on that station is hosted by former CBS 5 weatherman Brian Sussman and returning host Melanie Morgan. (Here's an interview Thom Hartmann did with Sussman regarding Sussman's book Climategate: A Veteran Meteorologist Exposes the Global Warming Scam.) After hearing that little snippet I thought: it's so frustrating how corporations have made the public airwaves less public over the years since broadcast regulations became dismantled starting in the Reagan years. It's enough to play the most popular mindless "Democrats are socialists/global warming is a myth/government is bad" line 24/7 to get a broadcast license in this country, it seems. Balance? Science? Reality? Who cares...you get on the radio to make MONEY, not inform the electorate!

The segment I heard starts around 56 minute mark of this audio file.

SUSSMAN: This one Bay Area plan has got people fired up, and in a nutshell this is a plan that's been mandated by the law here in California to essentially by the year 2050 make sure that we don't drive as much. If we do drive, we're going to be driving the kind of cars that the state legislature wants us to drive. We're going to be forced into mass transit. We're going to be forced to live in these urban hubs and reduce the size of our carbon footprint greatly. I mean, it's something right out of an Orwellian scheme. But this is the plan they have in place, and they're having all these workshops around the Bay Area to try to buy people into this plan. Patriots are now showing up. Tea Party Patriots are showing up at these assemblies and really disrupting the whole flow of the operation. So I know that there have been a lot of Tea Partiers who are going to be calling in the next half hour...

(That bill was SB 375.) I immediately had to turn it off since it was sickening how someone would value freedom to pollute over concern for the general welfare of We the People.

But at least the show is podcasted online. The 7AM hour is here. Sussman's rant begins at the 6 minute mark. Basically throwing around "utopia" and other scare terms. The hosts praise the Tea Partiers for showing up to shout down the meetings. I first heard of any carbon footprint workshops in the Bay Area through this silly show, and the state air resources board has more info. Google "energy efficiency workshop" with 2012 and california then you'll see where these events were held.

The first caller reported that the workshop organizers were overwhelmed by majority opposition showing up. Absurdly at the 11 minute mark Sussman claimed that people "across the spectrum" were showing up and saying no to the carbon footprint law.

The second caller (15 min.) claims that event organizers split up people voicing objection to different rooms. Either this or the previous caller or the hosts said something about KSFO organizing advocacy for deregulation of MTBE.

The third caller (18 min.) was a land developer who complained that the carbon footprint law interfered with his projects by forcing him to subsidize affordable housing units on his land with carbon footprint fees. Sussman then plugged this website BayAreaLiberty.org.

For a more scientific view of the California carbon bill see this report "Report Maps California's Energy Future to 2050" by California Council on Science and Technology.

So basically in a nutshell: this show emphasized property rights, property rights, individualism, individualism without even addressing the environmental aspect at all. That's the post-Fairness Doctrine radio for you right there. Since when did 24/7 Republican talking points, libertarian advocacy, and anti-science become the public interest? No wonder right wing lies have caught on to such a wide audience...they're sandwiched in between the traffic, weather, and news with very limited rebuttals. (Lucky enough in the SF Bay Area other stations have more sensible talk such as KGO on the weekends and 910 and 960 during the afternoons and evenings. If you're in a red state media market, tough luck, that free market is sure scary.)

Oh yeah, the theme music for this program is "" target="_blank">Know Your Enemy" by Rage Against the Machine. Funny how liberal bands' songs get misused and abused on CONtalk shows.

[burrowowl]

1. Raygun and

when the WLV no longer ran the debate and they created the FEC and and

[Speck Tater]

2. Broadcasting is a profit center for the 1%. Nothing more.

Don't expect any broadcaster to be concerned with anything other than quarterly dividends. Those dividends, and only those dividends are their sole purpose for existing.