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L.A. WATTS TIMES
October 1, 2009
OPINION EARL OFARI HUTCHINSON
Obama Should Back the Fairness Doctrine The mere mention of reworking the Fairness Doctrine sends conservative talk jocks and corporate broadcasters fleeing to the barricades. The jocks first rushed to the barricades when top White House adviser David Axelrod coyly hinted last March that new Federal Communications Commission head Julius Genachowski might take a look at the doctrine. That’s hardly the case — yet. In June 2008, then-presidential candidate Barack Obama flatly said that he did not support reimposing the Fairness Doctrine on broadcasters. And other than the stray remark from Axelrod, there’s no indication that Obama has changed his mind on the issue. However, he should. The doctrine, though vague, loose, and virtually unenforced during the decades it was on the books, did at least give some pubic space on the airwaves to an occasional dissenting voice. The thought of that is too much to stomach for the antiFairness Doctrine fear mongers. Their stock retort is that the doctrine obliterates free speech, will lead to a government takeover of the airwaves, drive corporate broadcasters into the tank and effectively muzzle conservative views. Conservative talk jocks and the media syndicates used the same arguments to prod Ronald Reagan and
Congress to dump the doctrine in 1987. None of this was true then or true now. The doctrine did not require that broadcasters give equal time to liberal or moderate Democrats to counter the hot air of conservative talk jocks. The doctrine did not tell broadcasters who should get a talk show what the hosts could say, or who they had to have on their shows. By the time Congress shelved the doctrine, the FCC had virtually ceased even enforcing it. The doctrine simply served as a broad guide to ensure that stations give at least some time to differing points of view, i.e. views other than those of conservative white guys, and an occasional token conservative woman or black. If enough listeners complained that a station was too lopsided in the parade of conservatives it had popping off on a particular issue, than it had to give “reasonable opportunity” to the other side to give an opposing view. The FCC didn’t tell the station how much time to give, who to give the time to, or when to give it. The tepid requirement that an offending station bring some semblance of balance to a discussion of an issue did not drive a single conservative jock from the studio mics, diminish the power and profit of the syndi-
cates, or chill free speech; it did just the opposite. The number of conservative talk radio hosts grew bigger, their influence greater, and the profits of corporate syndicates soared. In 1999, the five largest companies operated one out of five stations and generated nearly 50 percent of industry revenue. In 2006, they controlled more than one out of three stations and took in more than 60 percent of industry revenue. The few successful challenges to a station that hogged the air with conservative talk resulted in more, not less, free speech, since listeners got to hear a few differing views. No more. In the two decades since the burial of the doctrine, more than one-quarter of all broadcast stations don’t offer any local news or public affairs programming. An even greater number of stations simply plop in a few minutes of canned news headlines. Conservative talk radio has been a treasure chest of riches for the broadcast syndicates, and their talk jocks wield a power over millions that emperors, kings and dictators would drool over. A near-textbook example of that is the titanic debate over health care reform. There was some hint in the early days of the congressional debate over the plan that a handful of See HUTCHINSON, page 3
Prized Possessions: Media Politics and Missing Women BY SIKIVU HUTCHINSON
When the L.A. Times runs a story on a missing black woman on the front page of its local features section, it stimulates inquiring minds. How, in the super-charged climate of breathless cable news reports on Jaycee and her white sisterhood, could such a feat of journalistic subversion be possible? According to a story in a Sunday edition, 24-year-old Mitrice Richardson, an African American woman from South Los Angeles, went missing in midSeptember after being released from a Calabasas jail. Richardson had been arrested for apparently refusing to pay the tab for a meal she ate at a Malibu restaurant. Prior to the arrest, restaurant personnel and witnesses reported that she was behaving erratically and gave the appearance of being mentally ill. After authorities found marijuana in her car, they arrested her on charges of “defrauding an innkeeper” and possession. The Times chronicled the massive search made for Richardson this past weekend by friends, relatives and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. The story was also picked up by local news and has outraged many African Americans in Los Angeles. Questions swirl around the county sheriff’s conduct in both the arrest and release of Richardson.
Why, for example, was she not placed on a 72-hour psychiatric hold (a common practice when dealing with mentally ill “suspects”) when detained? And why, after being released from jail, was she sent off into the dead of night in a remote area without a cell phone or vehicle? Families of missing and abducted people of color organize tirelessly to generate any shred of coverage they can get from the media in “post-racial” America. Tired of the media’s ritual indifference to the lives of black women in their community, the mothers of missing women in Edgecombe County in North Carolina launched a billboard campaign to advertise a slew of suspected abductions in their area. So what distinguishes Richardson’s case from that of the scores of other missing and abducted people of color which seldom score even a few lines buried in a big city newspaper? Location is apparently the only factor that would warrant such an aberration. The Malibu sightings of Richardson were evidently so jarring for residents that they elicited instant recollection from those reported to have seen her. Unlike missing person cases tainted by the urban “grit” of communities of color — where some perceive crime to be the norm — the crime-free veneer of an almostexclusively white community where
“it’s strange to see a black woman walking in the (Malibu) canyon,” as the Times reported, is the subtext. Location, race and gender Sikivu Hutchinson play a pivotal role in the media’s fixation on missing person stories. In the national “victim-ocracy,” small town, suburban and/or university-affiliated white women get the most play as valued human interest subjects and cultural possessions. The endless media loop of search parties, dragged lakes, crack-of-dawn patrols and tearful living room pleas from grieving family members only lodge in the public imagination as national pathos when “our” little hometown girls are at stake. As exceptions to the rule, Richardson’s case — coupled with the more prominent example of slain Vietnamese-American Yale University student Annie Le — illustrates the extent to which location can obscure the regime of white privilege and entitlement that frames the stories and lives deemed most valuable by mainstream media. Centered in a bastion of Ivy League, power and privilege nestled uneasily in the racially segregated city of New Haven, the Le See SIKIVU, page 5
Marry Me a Little Less BY MAYA RUPERT CONTRIBUTING WRITER
On Sept. 24, at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s 39th Annual Legislative Conference, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) hosted a session exploring what happened to marriage in the black community. She encouraged a packed auditorium to discuss why black men and women aren’t getting married and staying married. It may seem odd that the CBC even had a conference on marriage considering it is not a legislative issue. However, Norton explained that the health of romantic relationships in the black community is directly tied to the health of the community as a whole, since those relationships affect the way children are raised and how they are financially supported. The response was exactly what you’d expect. For the decrease in married black couples, feminism took its usual share of the blame, as did the unavailability of good black men, due to incarceration and unemployment. And, of course, the crowd had a good laugh at the expense of black women when panelist Audrey Chapman, a family therapist and radio show host, credited the stereotypical attitude problem of black women for their inability to find husbands. In short, the conversation added nothing new to the discourse surrounding the increasingly low numbers of black couples getting married. What consistently surprises me about the marriage discussion in the black community is our refusal to take a step back and re-examine the conversation’s premise: Whether encouraging marriage really is the best way to contribute to the health of the black community. Let’s be clear: Marriage has a lot of benefits when it comes to raising children. But the assumption that it is the only way — or even the
best way — to create a healthy, nurturing environment for children is outdated and, in many instances, wrong. Children thrive in a stable and Maya Rupert loving environment, and a pretty good indication that a relationship does not provide such an environment is that the people involved chose to end it. And we need to let go of the idea that everyone is automatically better off just because couples stay together. This is particularly a concern because the rhetoric lamenting the demise of the black nuclear family is overtly sexist. Feminism is one of the most frequently cited culprits for destroying marriage in the black community. The story goes like this: Everything was perfect, and then one dark and stormy night, feminism came along and encouraged women to reject traditional gender roles, shift our focus away from the home and family, and convinced us that men weren’t necessary. The result was greater instances of divorce, children growing up in day care, and the emasculation of black men. (Oh, and lesbianism. In some renderings of the story, feminism created lesbianism). While feminism didn’t destroy marriage in the black community, it did embolden many women to decide whether they wanted to get married, whether they wanted to stay married, and what they wanted their marriages to look like. The only marriages that would have been negatively affected were ones where the women were unhappy to begin with. And faulting a movement that encouraged women to leave unhappy marriages is sexist. And by the way, children benefit from seeing their mothers See RUPERT, page 3
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