To some snickering and some indignant reactions, the FCC has ruled that Howard Stern's program is officially a news show. Specifically, it is a "bona fide news interview" program.
OK laugh, but this is exactly the right decision. For one thing, the government doesn't need to be picking out what are legitimate news programs. Is Rush Limbaugh a legitimate journalist? Is Geraldo? Am I?
Granted, Stern will tend to have somewhat prurient tastes in what he considers newsworthy. On the other hand, you could make a decent argument that Madonna and Britney playing lesbian MERITS more attention than the 9 Democrat dwarves, say.
This ruling came at the request of Stern's syndicator. The practical point of this is that as a news show, Stern is not bound by the equal time provisions, meaning that he can have Schwarzenegger on his show without being legally bound to have all the others on.
The US government has no legitimate interest or right to be meddling in the content of people's speech in the first place. At least this ruling recognizes some right for Stern to have guests on the air of his choosing, but it's 100% bogus that he should even have to ask.
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