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Politics : The Castle -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (512)	11/15/2002 11:13:03 AM
From: MSI	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 7936

Someone else buying a political ad doesn't shout you down. The effect is the same if they control the media through ad buys, and crank the price of exposure up. This POV assumes that broadcasting uses "the commons", like the New England town meeting hall. Everyone can have their say if they wish to get up and speak, but the rules do not allow partisans to charge so much for access to the podium that only they get to speak. One solution is in the FCC regs the require all broadcasters to meet their civic resposibilities, and include political coverage prior to elections. This used to be the case, until it became more lucrative to both broadcasters and incumbants to lock it up with increased costs, and got rid of things like the equal-time provision and restraints against concentrated ownership. An even more important and simpler solution would make the above solution unnecessary - make it a felony for any government individual to secretly influence mass media... The situation would IMO straighten itself out if there weren't large dollars and other covert influence from various gov't organizations on the media.

To: TimF who wrote (512)	11/15/2002 11:29:36 AM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 7936

Those are valid points, but aren't you concerned about the corrupting influence of big money on politics today? I think we have to remember that when the Constitution was written, there was no radio, no TV, no rapidly distributed national newspapers, all dominated by a limited number of outlets with very expensive access and requiring politicans to raise enormous amounts of money to communicate with large numbers of voters. (Also, Congress wasn't a full time job at all, so these were politicians who lived in their districts for most of the year.) The concepts of free political speech were quite different then from what they are now. I think the widsom of their concept of free political speech is being distorted by the changes in technology and money. Does this not concern you at all? If so, what alternate suggeestions do you have?