quote:


DENVER -- Sen. Barack Obama's campaign organized its supporters Wednesday night to confront Tribune-owned WGN-AM in Chicago for having a critic of the Illinois Democrat on its air. (Listen to the interview.)

"WGN radio is giving right-wing hatchet man Stanley Kurtz a forum to air his baseless, fear-mongering terrorist smears," Obama's campaign wrote in an e-mail to supporters. "He's currently scheduled to spend a solid two-hour block from 9:00 to 11:00 p.m. pushing lies, distortions, and manipulations about Barack and University of Illinois professor William Ayers."

Kurtz, a conservative writer, recently wrote an article for the National Review that looked at Obama's ties to Ayers, a former 1960s radical who later emerged as a school reform advocate in Chicago.

The magazine had been blocked in its initial attempts to obtain records from the University of Illinois at Chicago regarding a school reform initiative called the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, which Obama chaired and Ayers co-founded.

Obama critics were quick to suggest that political clout could be involved in seeking to protect Obama from embarrassment. The school later reserved its position and made the records available Tuesday.
http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2008/08/obama_campaign_confronts_wgn_r.html

quote:

Chicago radio station WGN-AM is again coming under attack from the presidential campaign of Sen. Barack Obama for offering airtime to a controversial author.

It is the second time in recent weeks the station has been the target of an "Obama Action Wire" alert to supporters of the Illinois Democrat.

Monday night's target was David Freddoso, who the campaign said was scheduled to be on the station from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. Chicago time.

"The author of the latest anti-Barack hit book is appearing on WGN Radio in the Chicagoland market tonight, and your help is urgently needed to make sure his baseless lies don't gain credibility," an e-mail sent Monday evening to Obama supporters reads.

"David Freddoso has made a career off dishonest, extreme hate mongering," the message said. "And WGN apparently thinks this card-carrying member of the right-wing smear machine needs a bigger platform for his lies and smears about Barack Obama -- on the public airwaves."
http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2008/09/wgnam_again_target_of_obama_ca.html

quote:

ORIGINAL: leonfigg3

No, these tactics do not reflect how people may tend to believe what the Fairness Doctrine is about. It is what the Fairness Doctrine will be about, and what means could be employed for people and groups of a particular persuasion to use to insure that if they are not heard, then the other side will not be heard.

On the surface these tactics may seem tame and innocent but if you read what some supporters of the Fairness Doctrine have said and written you may find that they are not merely out to ensure all sides of an issue be heard, but that media empires such as the Tribune company (the Tribune Company in Chicago not only owns WGN radio, but WGN television, and the Chicago Tribune newspaper) be broken up.

Why do they want this?

Smaller media outlets are easier to intimidate and control.

It's funny that the same political party that has spent the last eight years infering how Nazis-like the Bush administration has been can't seem to wait to get in power with their own Nazis-like programs.

Granted what Obama supporters seemed to call for seems to be legal and all that, but it still smacks of Naizis-like censorship. If the McCain camp had done the same thing, you can bet Obama and his supporters would be saying that that is what they were actually doing.