A step closer to the fairness doctrine?

Obama picks new head of FCC.

It pays off to go to Havard Law School. Julius Genachowski, a former classmate of Mr. Obama's at Harvard, has been named Julius Genachowski as the new head of the FCC. Previous to this move, he was a part of various venture capital groups and corporations around DC, most became an insider within those eight years. He had also previously worked for the FCC as well.

Ok, so he seems like a self-started, business oriented professional. I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. But as you read the article further, he was a campaign worker who openly expressed support for "net-neutrality" protections and media-ownership rules to promote diversity. First of all, I have no idea what net-neutrality could possibly mean. The internet is probably humanity's last bastion of true openness. No matter who you are: liberal, conservative, or pinko-communist, anyone has a free run to express themselves. Even scumbag neo-nazis have paypal accounts to sell copies of the "Turner Diaries".

What scares me more is that second part. "Media-ownership rules to promote diversity". This leads me to believe that Mr. Genachowski is none other than a full fledged supporter of the fairness doctrine, a policy that has floated around the liberal camp since the 1940s. Back then, congress believed that both sides of the political spectrum should have equal air time due to the limited amount of frequency that was available to fledgling radio technology. Now this policy is no longer needed due to the fact that the technology has expanded tenfold. No one company has to fight for airwave space because there is so much open space for everyone.

Now the fairness doctrine is a ploy to silence conservative talk, or at least, force conservative-leaning stations, by government mandate, to allow equal time for the other side their so-called "fair share". First of all, it is known that conservative talk rules the radio waves, with hosts such as Mark Levine and Sean Hannity, and this dominance is a threat to their liberal counter-parts, whose ratings, to say the least, are poor. In the liberal mindset, however, it is completely logical to force private communication companies to insert less popular hosts in their time slots to marginalize the time reserved for the more popular ones that, in essence, make them money through ratings and advertisments. Bottom line, the fairness doctrine eliminates private enterprise in favor of bigger government.

Last, and my other important point, is how this relates to the double-speak that Mr. Obama has used time and time again. In February, he vowed to never touch the subject of the fairness doctrine and if congress pushes any type of legislation pertaining to it, he will reject it. With this appointment, could this be a way to curtail the legislative process and delegate the power to a federal agency? We will have to wait and see.