The Fairness Doctrine

President Barack Obama has said he has zero interest in reviving the old Fairness Doctrine rules, which, in theory, required radio and television stations to grant equal and fair representation to all sides of political debates.

The FD was scrapped during the Reagan years and that single move rewired America’s political discourse, giving rise to a generation of right-wing talkers: from Rush Limbaugh to Sean Hannity, from Michael Savage to Laura Ingraham.

Oh – and don’t forget Bill O’Reilly. And those are just the national name-brand talkers. There are also dozens more AM jocks with local or regional followings.

Progressives have failed to create a radio-equivalent of this message machine. There’s a pretty complicated debate over why. Are liberal talkers dull? I don’t buy that. Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert? They do fine on TV.

Others claim that media corporations have zero interest in broadcasting the views of liberals. Again, I’m not buying it. Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow are populr fixtures at MSNBC, a network owned by General Electric.

I think a big part of the “problem” may be NPR.

Public radio attracts about 30 million listeners a week.

That’s about twice Rush’s numbers. (Granted, public radio is on the air a lot more hours than Rush, who produces “only” 15 hours a week of radio.)

And while we know that public radio attracts a broad mix of political listeners, I do think a lot of liberals are loathe to give up their Morning Edition and their Fresh Air.

Which means that Air America and other lib-talk efforts have a tough hill to climb finding a sustainable, viable audience.

Circling back to conservative talk radio, I don’t see any sign that right-wing folks have anything to worry about. Bringing back the Fairness Doctrine would be well-night impossible at this point.

But I do think Republicans have a serious question figuring out what to do with folks like Rush and Sean. Are those guys really the intellectual center of the conservative movement?

Are they really the de facto agenda setters? And if so, what does that say about the future of the GOP?