A conservative media watchdog shares the concerns of Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) that the Obama administration's new FCC "diversity" director may try to regulate talk radio with a "backdoor" method akin to the Fairness Doctrine.
Grassley has sent a letter to the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) expressing his concerns about Mark Lloyd, who now serves as the new FCC associate general counsel and chief diversity officer. Prior to his FCC appointment, says the senator, Lloyd served as a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, where he coauthored a paper titled "The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio." Seton Motley, director of communications at the Media Research Center, says Grassley went on to express his concerns about Lloyd's suggested remedies for this "imbalance." "He basically lays out a roadmap for liberal activists to use the FCC to threaten the licenses of stations with whom they do not agree politically -- and that is by threatening them via media diversity and localism complaints to the FCC," he explains. "So basically, he lays out the way they can travel the alternate routes to arrive at the same destination of the Fairness Doctrine, which is shutting down conservative Christian talk radio by using the FCC to threaten their licenses. Now he sits at the FCC waiting to take their call." Motley says Grassley's concerns that Lloyd's ideas are a backdoor Fairness Doctrine are completely justified.
Grassley has sent a letter to the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) expressing his concerns about Mark Lloyd, who now serves as the new FCC associate general counsel and chief diversity officer. Prior to his FCC appointment, says the senator, Lloyd served as a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, where he coauthored a paper titled "The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio." Seton Motley, director of communications at the Media Research Center, says Grassley went on to express his concerns about Lloyd's suggested remedies for this "imbalance." "He basically lays out a roadmap for liberal activists to use the FCC to threaten the licenses of stations with whom they do not agree politically -- and that is by threatening them via media diversity and localism complaints to the FCC," he explains.
"So basically, he lays out the way they can travel the alternate routes to arrive at the same destination of the Fairness Doctrine, which is shutting down conservative Christian talk radio by using the FCC to threaten their licenses. Now he sits at the FCC waiting to take their call." Motley says Grassley's concerns that Lloyd's ideas are a backdoor Fairness Doctrine are completely justified.
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