Hennnger on the FCC

Danniel Henninger’s column at OpinionJournal has a nice column on the FCC rules changes and the liberal response.

And, I really do think that there is something to this:

A further reason behind the diversity-of-opinion complaints about the FCC's decision to loosen ownership rules is the deep belief on the Democratic left that the Republican-led commission took this action so that Rupert Murdoch will be freed to buy up and "control" more media with his right-wing compulsions. Why so many people now watch Fox Cable News without Rupert Murdoch holding a gun to their heads is a frustrating glitch in the theory that still needs to be worked out.

Not to overplay this issue, but is has been utterly amazing the degree to which those who are opposed to these rules almost invariably refer to Murdoch as the poster child of why the changes are disastrous for democracy. As I was watching John Stewart's show last night, where Stewart poked fun at the changes, and commented that Murdoch is "evil" it dawned on me that we never heard such cries of terror when another media mogul, Ted Turner, controlled the only 24-hour cable news outlets. No, when it was only CNN, they were considered the gold standard of news, and claims that they leaned left were scoffed at by the liberals. Not to mention that Turner truly dominated the cable industry for a while (e.g., CNN, Headline News, TNT, TCM, Turner South, TBS). Yet, where was the panic when Ted was in charge?