"Steven Waldman Named To Lead Commission Effort on Future of Media In a Changing Technological Landscape" (FCC Press Release)

Steven,

This appointment is indeed a great honor. However, against the backdrop of an administration that is calling for the reinstatement of the fairness doctrine and aggressively attacking Fox News, you will have your hands full in protecting the Constitutional rights to freedom of speech; especially for those whom this administration reviles and is most threatened by. If you end up carrying Obama's water, I fear that this appointment will become a watershed in what has been to date a sterling career, and will be what you are most remembered for.

Steven,

Watching this on Fox News Sunday, I was a little disconcerted by Axelrod’s punt,

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2009/02/15/axelrod_refuses_to_rule_out_fairness_doctrine.html

More alarming still has been Obama’s vilification of Fox News as not being a legitimate news outlet, and being a mere mouthpiece for the RNC.

Worse still, is the appointment of Mark Lloyd to the new Czar post of “FCC Chief Diversity Officer”. Lloyd, as you know, is a former Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress.

Lloyd proposes to force private broadcasters to pay a fee every year for their broadcast license that is EQUAL to their gross operating budget! A 100% tax to fund public radio, the stations with whom they are in competition.

Lloyd proposes a roadmap to attack conservative and Christian stations in order to remove their licenses.

http://technorati.com/videos/youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DR8dBe_r_6c0

Tell me, Steven, that this is not more caustic than the fairness doctrine?

Senator Jeff Bingaman has been calling for a reinstatement of the fairness doctrine, among others in Congress,

http://beltwayblips.dailyradar.com/video/dem_sen_on_fairness_doctrine/

Going into your new position Steven, do you categorically renounce Lloyd’s back door proposal for gutting private and conservative talk radio? What is your response to those members of Congress who call for the reinstatement of the fairness doctrine, or to the Obama administration’s assault on Fox News as not a legitimate news organization?

This is what I was alluding to in my admonition to watch your career during your time at FCC. Obama may well be a one-term president. Though I don’t often agree with you on issues, I believe that you are a genuinely good and decent man.

People such as Lloyd are ideological hacks who are clearly out of your league, educationally, intellectually, and temperamentally.

Is it fair to ask your position on these substantive matters of fairness prior to your taking office?

Steven,

I appreciate your candor. "Chief Diversity Officer" sounds pretty self-explanatory, and not a little ominous to conservatives. While Genachowski has come out in opposition to the fairness doctrine, he has not repudiated the assault on Fox News, nor has he repudiated Lloyd's proposal for licensing fees for private (conservative) talk radio stations which would gut them just as efficiently as the so-called fairness doctrine. Government always crushes with punitive taxes that which it wishes to eliminate. I find Genachowski's silence on Lloyd and the assaults on Fox as disturbing as it is convenient.

As an entrepreneur who co-founded and grew Beliefnet, you can appreciate the power of the free market. If people want something, they buy. If not, they pass. There is a reason why most liberal attempts in the private sector of the radio market have failed. There is a reason why Fox News has become a titan in cable. People are buying.

With only 33% of Americans identifying as Republican, why should Obama and the left feel threatened? That means 67% should be patronizing all other cable news outlets. That Fox is beating them all combined says something. Maybe they truly are fair and balanced, and are regarded as such by more than just Republicans.

When I see proposals such as Lloyds, they highlight how much people don't subscribe to liberal cable news and public talk radio. There is a reason why most all liberal programming on the radio is on publicly-funded stations such as NPR. These draconian proposals punish not only the stations and their employees, but the American people for daring to think and believe differently from a self-ordained leftist elite. The greatest perversity of all is that my position used to be espoused by my liberal professors in the 60's and 70's. As Dylan sang, "the times they are a changing..."

People such as Obama, Lloyd, Bingaman, et al. are on the wrong side of the First Amendment and the American character. They'll be remembered as such. You deserve a better fate.

God Bless

So, Steve, when you deliver your report to the Commish after some length of time, is that the end of your appointment, y'think, or what? How long do you have to come up with a report?

Interesting that conservatives, who dominate yammer radio and yammer tv due to the businessmen who buy adds for them and the dittoheads who want to be told what to think every day, claim to be panicked by rumors. Guys, you most of all, should know most rumors, and almost all rumors on the yammer shows, are false.

Steve, congratulations I guess. We'll miss you here I'm sure.