ALEXANDRIA, VA
– Media Research Center President L. Brent Bozell joined with House
Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-MO), Congressmen Mike Pence (R-IN), Greg
Walden (R-OR) and Trent Franks (R-AZ), syndicated radio talk show
host Laura Ingraham and President of Americans for Tax Reform Grover
Norquist in declaring this July 4th to be Radio
Independence Day, and called for Congress to allow a full up or down
vote on the Broadcaster Freedom Act (BFA).
The BFA will
kill once and for all the Fairness Doctrine, the onerous
governmental policy that served to stifle free speech on the radio
airwaves for four decades. Twenty-one years since its repeal,
conservatives have flourished on the air, and liberals have been
seeking to again silence them with the reinstatement of the Fairness
Doctrine.
The BFA is
currently stuck in committee. A discharge petition has been started
to allow it to the floor for a full vote, but it has only 194 of the
needed 218 signatures.
Bozell and his
fellow free speech advocates today demanded that members of Congress
sign the petition for broadcaster freedom by Radio Independence Day,
July 4th.
Bozell:
“Today we declare Radio Independence Day, and demand that free
speech be given a full and fair vote in Congress this summer.
“The Founding Fathers deemed free speech first among our rights
to be listed in the Constitution. What they envisioned and
guaranteed with the First Amendment was a national dialogue
teeming with as many voices and with as many opinions as could
be raised.
“The era of the Fairness Doctrine represented dark days for this
first and fundamental right. Government regulators monitored
every radio broadcast minute, demanding and imposing “fairness”
-- as defined by government. What they and the American people
got instead was silence.
“Now, with talk radio flourishing, and conservatives finally
having their voices heard, liberals desire to shut them up and
shut them down by reinstituting the Fairness Doctrine.
“We are not here today to ask liberals to cast a vote for free
speech and against the Fairness Doctrine. We are simply asking
that a vote be allowed to occur. Give every member of Congress
the opportunity to go on the record: either for free speech, or
for the Fairness Doctrine.”
To schedule an interview with MRC President
Brent Bozell or another MRC spokesperson,
please contact Tim Scheiderer (x. 126) or Colleen O’Boyle (x.
122) at (703) 683-5004.
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