Remove Rush Limbaugh from Armed Forces Radio?

[DawnCt1]

Yesterday Sen. Tom Harken introduced a bill to remove the Rush Limbaugh program's 1 hour per day on the Armed Forces Radio. This story has been run on the Cyber News Service. This to me is true censorship, not Howard Stern being fired by several Clear Channel stations.

 

[AirForceRocks]

I won't comment until I find out Senator Harken's reasons for wanting the program removed. If Rush Limbaugh is breaking some law or is in violation of FCC regs, then sure, take action, whether it be fines or removal from the air. But I doubt that is the reason.

 

[DawnCt1]

Originally posted by AirForceRocks
I won't comment until I find out Senator Harken's reasons for wanting the program removed. If Rush Limbaugh is breaking some law or is in violation of FCC regs, then sure, take action, whether it be fines or removal from the air. But I doubt that is the reason.

I believe the arguement centers on "fair and balanced". I don't have the link to his bill, just the petition.

 

[RachelEllen]

Who decides who gets on Armed Forces Radio in the first place? That's who they should be appealing to. I

totally supported Clear Channel's right to get rid of Howard Stern, and I don't think it's censorship not to broadcast Limbaugh either. Time on the radio is a limited resource and no one person has a 'right' to it.

But if the progamming content is not usually decided by a vote of Congress, than Congress shouldn't require him to be removed. If his statements would have a negative effect for the country by being played on Armed Forces Radio, then I think Congress has a right to express an opinion, but I also think that's a waste of thier time.

Rachel

p.s. I don't listen to Limbaugh (it's on here in the middle of the day), but the quotes I read from the past weeks were pretty offensive.

 

[AirForceRocks]

Who decides who gets on Armed Forces Radio in the first place? That's who they should be appealing to.

DoD makes those decisions, and Senator Harkin put an amendment in the military funding bill that would require balance in the views presented on AFR.

I totally supported Clear Channel's right to get rid of Howard Stern, and I don't think it's censorship not to broadcast Limbaugh either. Time on the radio is a limited resource and no one person has a 'right' to it.

ITA that no one has a right to broadcast a radio program, but the two things you mentioned are apples and oranges. There is a huge difference between a private company deciding not to broadcast something and the government telling someone they can't broadcast.

However, after further consideration, I wouldn't consider a decision by the DoD to not broadcast Rush on AFR as censorship. In this case, the DoD, while obviously a government agency, would be acting in the capacity of an "owner" of a radio station, just like Clear Channel, and as such would be making a programming decision. If the government were to say that Rush couldn't broadcast at all, then that would be censorship. But I don't think that the DoD refusing to carry his show would be censorship.

 

[DawnCt1]

Originally posted by RachelEllen
Who decides who gets on Armed Forces Radio in the first place? That's who they should be appealing to. I

p.s. I don't listen to Limbaugh (it's on here in the middle of the day), but the quotes I read from the past weeks were pretty offensive.

If you take anything out of context you can make it sound "offensive". The written petition has gone to Rumsfeld but according to news article on Cybernews. The bill submitted by Tom Harkin I heard about on the radio.

 

[RachelEllen]

Originally posted by DawnCt1
If you take anything out of context you can make it sound "offensive". The written petition has gone to Rumsfeld but according to news article on Cybernews. The bill submitted by Tom Harkin I heard about on the radio.

I agree, but the quotes I read were on a pretty conservatively slanted website. It mainly concerns the prisoner abuse in Iraq. Here's a sample:

"This is no different than what happens at [Yale University's] Skull and Bones initiation, and we're going to ruin people's lives over it and we're going to hamper our military effort, and then we are going to really hammer them (the culprits) because they had a good time," Limbaugh said.

And this is from the site who's tagline is 'The Right News, Right Now'

But in general, I agree, whoever decides programming for that station can put on whoever they like. and anyone, including congresmen can express an opinion about it. But the way Harkin is going about this does seem wrong.

 

[KarenC]

I think the reason Harkin introduced the bill is because of some specific statements Limbaugh has made about the Abu Graib torture incident. Statements that would lead the listener to belive that Limbaugh saw nothing wrong with what was done--that it was just "letting off steam".

 

[AirForceRocks]

Originally posted by KarenC
I think the reason Harkin introduced the bill is because of some specific statements Limbaugh has made about the Abu Graib torture incident. Statements that would lead the listener to belive that Limbaugh saw nothing wrong with what was done--that it was just "letting off steam".

But I don't think that's a good enough reason. Stop someone from broadcasting because you don't like what they're saying?

Again, so long as the decision is still up to the DoD (and I've not read the amendment, so I don't know if it specifies the Limbaugh show or not), then I really don't have an issue with it.

 

[DawnCt1]

Originally posted by KarenC
I think the reason Harkin introduced the bill is because of some specific statements Limbaugh has made about the Abu Graib torture incident. Statements that would lead the listener to belive that Limbaugh saw nothing wrong with what was done--that it was just "letting off steam".

I haven't read what Harkin said, but I would guess it has less to do with the statements that Rush made and more to do with his conservative views and his support for the president during an election year.

 

[dmadman43]

Originally posted by AirForceRocks
But I don't think that's a good enough reason. Stop someone from broadcasting because you don't like what they're saying?

Again, so long as the decision is still up to the DoD (and I've not read the amendment, so I don't know if it specifies the Limbaugh show or not), then I really don't have an issue with it.

I'm not sure how Harkin can say AFRN is not balanced. They carry upwards of 1200 radio programs, and broadcast quite a bit of NPR's content. I remember reading somewhere the Limbaugh got voted to be added via a write in vote. Th AFRN sent out a survey about 10 years ago asking DoD employees what whould be added. Limbaugh was not even on this but still came in in the top 5

 

[Bumbles]

Considering how liberal most of the media is, I would think having Rush on would keep it fair and balanced

 

[DawnCt1]

Originally posted by Bumbles
Considering how liberal most of the media is, I would think having Rush on would keep it fair and balanced

ITA.

 

[wvrevy]

Yeah, I was out a bit ago and heard Rush whining about this

I've never really thought about it, but Armed Forces Radio is a government paid for network. As such, it IS unlawful to broadcast only the view supported by those currently in power.

And it's NOT censorship, so kindly leggo' of that red herring Nobody is stopping Rush from broadcasting his misguided idiocy....Just saying that he can't do it on a publicly funded network (at least, not without some misguided idiocy from the other side of the aisle).

 

[Bumbles]

It's not like Rush is on 24/7 tho...what's wrong with having one program on that has a conservative edge?

 

[wvrevy]

Originally posted by Bumbles
Considering how liberal most of the media is, I would think having Rush on would keep it fair and balanced

 

[AirForceRocks]

Originally posted by wvrevy
I've never really thought about it, but Armed Forces Radio is a government paid for network. As such, it IS unlawful to broadcast only the view supported by those currently in power.

If that's true, then I would have thought that NPR would have been off the air years ago, as well as PBS.

 

[DawnCt1]

Originally posted by wvrevy
Yeah, I was out a bit ago and heard Rush whining about this

I've never really thought about it, but Armed Forces Radio is a government paid for network. As such, it IS unlawful to broadcast only the view supported by those currently in power.

And it's NOT censorship, so kindly leggo' of that red herring Nobody is stopping Rush from broadcasting his misguided idiocy....Just saying that he can't do it on a publicly funded network (at least, not without some misguided idiocy from the other side of the aisle).

If NPR takes up a great deal of the program hours and Rush is on one little hour per day, his is hardly the only view being broadcast. Good try though.

 

[wvrevy]

Originally posted by Bumbles
It's not like Rush is on 24/7 tho...what's wrong with having one program on that has a conservative edge?

Nothing, so long as you BALANCE it with one having a liberal edge. Again, MY tax dollars are going into putting that loud-mouthed bafoon on the air, and I have no problem with that SO LONG AS there is an equally loud mouthed guy arguing the liberal viewpoint.

Private channels can do what they want...AFR isn't a private entity.

 

[AirForceRocks]

Originally posted by wvrevy

I'm not sure why the I don't think it's much of a secret that much of the media has varying degrees of liberal bias.