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I think it’s too late for the media to make a course correction and start to be accountable for what they report. The barn door was left open for too long and the barn is almost empty.

The barn door was opened by President Reagan in 1987, when he killed the Fairness Doctrine with a Presidential Veto. In fact, Reagan had the barn doors removed.

The Fairness Doctrine was a policy of the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC), introduced in 1949, that required the holders of broadcast licenses both to present controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a manner that was — in the Commission’s view — honest, equitable, and balanced. The FCC eliminated the Doctrine in 1987, and in August 2011 the FCC formally removed the language that implemented the Doctrine.

As soon as the Fairness Doctrine was gone, or even before it was gone, far right conservatives declared war on the media and labeled any media source that didn’t fall into line with their message of hate, liberally laced with misinformation and lies, as the “liberal media” not to be trusted, a dirty word equal to the “F” word or far worse. To the far right deplorables, if you had been labeled with the “liberal” word, you were a traitor to the Republic and deserved to be tarred, feathers and burned at the stake after being water boarded and tortured for a few months until you were on the brink of insanity.

Thanks to Reagan more than anyone else, the politics of hate was born and more than one generation grew up learning to distrust any media source, but the one that had taken over their thinking; the one voice that seduced them to the darkside.

For instance, an old friend of mine I’ve known for about 60 years only trusts his source for all thinking and news, conservative talk show host Dennis Prager. If Dennis Prager says something, nothing will change my old friend’s mind. It doesn’t matter that fact-check sites or even primary fact-gathering sites that focus on only gathering the actual known facts says. If Prager says it is so, then it is gospel.

My old friend, just like millions of other deplorables, have decided who to trust and who not to trust and there is no second chance. The media lost those people long ago and there is no bringing them back.

The deplorables loyalty goes beyond reason, and this explains why Rush Limbaugh, the king of hate radio, calls his loyal followers ditto heads; Rush will do the thinking for them. Don’t trust anyone or any source but Rush or the conservative talk show voice of your choice and there are many choices.

Conservative talk radio is a Pandora’s Box, and there is no putting the lid back on.

“Talkers Magazine has put out their “2008 Heavy Hundred” list rating radio talk show hosts across the country and one thing is obvious, conservatives still reign supreme in radio.

“The top ten includes one “progressive” (Ed Schultz) and one shock jock (Don Imus), but is otherwise dominated by conservatives. The rest of the list has a smattering of sports guys and a very few more left-talkers, but just as in the top ten, much of the other 90 slots are dominated by conservatives.

#1- Rush Limbaugh, #2- Sean Hannity, #3- Michael Savage, #4- Dr. Laura Schlessinger, #5- Glenn Beck, # 6- Laura Ingraham, #7- Don Imus, #8- Ed Schultz, #9- Mike Gallagher, #10- Neal Boortz

http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/warner-todd-huston/2008/02/13/top-100-radio-host-list-dominated-conservatives-rush-1

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