Dixie Chicks Radio Ban Cited At Senate Hearing
http://launch.yahoo.com/read/news.asp?contentID=214084

Does this seem ridiculous to you or is this a real concern? Aren't individual businesses allowed to decide what they will and will not broadcast based upon their customer (Listener) feedback? I know that the local country station WXTU had a similar ban in effect. Are there any listeners to that station on the blog?

It's a pretty clear example of what's wrong with media conglomeration - the political/ideological inclinations of one CEO are imposed on an entire region. What about Dixie Chicks fans who might have agreed with the sentiment about Bush?

When too few people make too many decisions about what we do and don't hear/see/read, we will miss stuff without even knowing it. Hell, I'm sure it's happening already.

That is certainly a valid point. On the other hand, do you think that people who are famous really have a valid argument when the public does not support their works in response to their making their political stances known?

I generally cringe when entertainers wear their politics on their sleeve. If it's integral to their art, that's fine, but to parade around like their opinions are somehow more significant because of their stature as performers (as though the two were intrinsically connected) is just stupid.

But it's irrelevant whether the majority agreed with them or no - the whole idea of "free speech" is to allow a diversity of opinions (and especially those that run counter to the majority's). But if too few people control most of the means of communication, there is de facto less free speech than before.

That certainly makes sense if they are censored, but what if it is just the public outcry against their opinion?

The majority of country music fans were against them. The stations that stopped playing them were not the cross over stations that play country pop. It was the hard core country stations. Before the ban, the stations had tons of calls asking for it. The DC are a cross over act. Most of the people that agreed with them do not listen to country stations. They are not real country fans, just pop country, like Shania Twain.

It's just like anti-war protesters saying Bush wasn't listening to the majority. Being loudest doesn't make you the majority. Most Americans agree with W. But they are blind to the reality of the majority.

__________________
Jason
Lynn Swann 06'

"Individualism is absent when other peoples' standards, not reality and reason, are ones primary guide."