![\"\"](\"https:\/\/live-rush-limbaugh.pantheonsite.io\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/RUSHNIGHTLINE.jpg\")
<\/p>\nRUSH: Let\u2019s go to audio sound bite number 1. When I saw this on the roster today, I got a little guilty. I don\u2019t know how long ago it was, but it\u2019s at least some months ago.<\/p>\n
Ted Koppel made a request for a sit-down interview with me for I think it was a piece on CBS, their Sunday morning show. I think that\u2019s what it was. And I intended to reply \u2019cause back in the early nineties, I had a very, very good relationship with Ted Koppel. I was a frequent guest on Nightline, and it was a highlight for me. I would talk to Mr. Koppel during the day of those appearances and so forth and get an idea of what was happening on the program that night. And he was respectful. And I enjoyed it.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Then — I\u2019m not gonna go into detail — something happened and there was a divorce and Ted Koppel and I didn\u2019t speak and still haven\u2019t spoken. It involved Barney Frank, and it was something I ended up being mischaracterized on Nightline, and Ted Koppel called and apologized, but asked me not to tell anybody that he had called and apologized. ‘Cause it was really a bad thing that Barney Frank had said. And some weeks later the subject came up, and I went ahead and mentioned that Koppel had called and apologized, and it made him mad and I haven\u2019t talked to him since.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s been after me to do an interview for one of these pieces, and I simply forgot it. I might have actually done it. As I say, it\u2019s within the past three to four months. And I saw the sound bite roster, and there\u2019s two Koppel bites from this program, I think this episode of whatever it is he wanted me to appear on. And I started feeling a little guilty not because — I just forgot it. I didn\u2019t even get back to him. That\u2019s not good.<\/p>\n
So, anyway, to the sound bites we go. It\u2019ll illustrate much of what I just set the table with. This was March the 7th at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. They had an event entitled, “The War On The Press: A Conversation with Marvin Kalb and -” obviously this is not what he wanted me to appear on, but I know this is what he wanted to talk to me about.<\/p>\n
“The War on the Press: A Conversation with Marvin Kalb and Ted Koppel.” An audience member said, “Mr. Koppel, I watched Walter Cronkite every night. I could never figure out what his opinion was on anything until he expressed it. If he was the most trusted man in America for at least a decade, who inherits the mantle of the most trusted media person in America today?”<\/p>\n
KOPPEL: There are millions of people in this country today who would say, “I have absolute and total confidence in everything that Rush Limbaugh says.” He has an audience of about 14 or 15 million people —<\/p>\n
RUSH: Twenty-six.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/live-rush-limbaugh.pantheonsite.io\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/KOPPELRUSHCRONKITEAPP.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
KOPPEL: — a week who would be prepared to live and die by everything he says. I am confident that there are certainly a couple of million people in this country who feel the same way about Rachel Maddow. The difference between then and now is, back then people of differing ideologies were able to settle on a sense of trustworthiness in a person in the middle. The middle is what\u2019s missing.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Yeah. As I\u2019ve said, I have a great deal of respect for Ted Koppel. He is a member in good standing of the leftist media. He may not think of himself that way, but he is. But this comment here is actually reflective of a viewpoint held by media members of a certain age. He\u2019s really lamenting the loss of the media monopoly the left had, as you will hear in the next bite. He wanted to continue with his point.<\/p>\n
An audience member asks, “Who is the most trusted man in America now if it\u2019s not Walter Cronkite?” So he says, “Well, there isn\u2019t really one. But in Rush Limbaugh\u2019s world, he is. With his audience, he is. With people on the left, they are. But there isn\u2019t any one person,” he says, “that can do it anymore because nobody\u2019s in the middle, like Walter Cronkite was in the middle. There\u2019s nobody that bridges the gap,” which, of course, isn\u2019t why Cronkite was who he was and what he was.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/live-rush-limbaugh.pantheonsite.io\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/APP-082918-Cronkite.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
The reason Cronkite was perceived to be in the middle is because back then there wasn\u2019t any conservative media. Cronkite was an uber-leftist, but never had to say so. He could do it with a raised eyebrow; he could do it with the news subjects he chose to cover and not cover. You know, we all know now that Cronkite was prototypical liberal, as is all of the media. But here\u2019s the next portion of Koppel\u2019s bite…<\/p>\n
KOPPEL: ‘Til 1987, we had something called the Fairness Doctrine —<\/p>\n
RUSH: Here we go.<\/p>\n
KOPPEL: — that dealt with —<\/p>\n
RUSH: Here we go with this.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/live-rush-limbaugh.pantheonsite.io\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/ZZ-APP-Stop-The-Tape.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
KOPPEL: — the broadcast media. The Fairness Doctrine dictated that if you were gonna put something on the air, an interview on the air with someone of liberal persuasion, it needed to be balanced with a similar kind of point of view from someone from the conservative side. That ended under the Reagan administration in 1987. And not by coincidence, Rush Limbaugh had his first broadcast in 1988. And from then on, you no longer have the same kind of moderating control that the federal government was once able to exercise through the FCC.<\/p>\n
RUSH: There is a lot to unpack here, and I\u2019ve unpacked it countless times before. Now, Ted Koppel is from the Cronkite era, and so his viewpoint has that as its floor or common ground. Cronkite was not in the center. There was no center. It was just perceived to be the center because there was no so-called conservative media, not nationally. I mean, you had some local stuff and maybe some magazines, but you didn\u2019t have anything — anything — to compete with the mainstream media\u2019s monopoly on the news.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s what they\u2019re all lamenting that they have lost. Now, I know Koppel\u2019s being very nice to me; don\u2019t misunderstand here. But the Fairness Doctrine, once again, is irrelevant! But these guys can\u2019t get over it! They can\u2019t get over, “If it hadn\u2019t been for the federal government deregulating radio, why, we wouldn\u2019t have lost our monopoly.” I worked for three years in Sacramento, California, under the Fairness Doctrine. It was never an issue. It was never discussed.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/live-rush-limbaugh.pantheonsite.io\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/RushFairness.jpg\")
The reason the Fairness Doctrine was eliminated because it was antiquated and outmoded and was no longer effective or even utilized. The idea of balancing your programming? He\u2019s confusing, as a lot of people do, the equal-time doctrine with the Fairness Doctrine — and they\u2019re not even really similar when you get down to it. The Fairness Doctrine did not impair me at all. I did the exact show you hear every day here in terms of ideological content in Sacramento, California, that I\u2019m doing here. There wasn\u2019t one effort to make me stop.<\/p>\n
There wasn\u2019t one attempt to impose the Fairness Doctrine.<\/p>\n
Well, there was one time some local activist got mad, came in, and demanded some time to respond. I thought it would be good radio, so I let the guy come in. But it was not mandated. It was not ordered. It was not a factor. It\u2019s not a factor today. It was not a factor in 1988. The left just uses this as a crutch to explain, in part, why they\u2019ve lost their monopoly. It can\u2019t be because this program is good. It can\u2019t be because I have some talent and know how to use it and work a radio program pretty well.<\/p>\n
Can\u2019t be that. No. It\u2019s gotta be because the federal government got rid of a bunch of regulations. But this attitude here that Koppel explains is an attitude that is still to this day felt by practically everybody in the Drive-By Media in the sense that they just can\u2019t get over having lost their monopoly, and they can\u2019t get over having to compete. I believe, folks, that the loss of their monopoly then forced them to have to compete, and that\u2019s what drew them out.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/live-rush-limbaugh.pantheonsite.io\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/00Americas-Anchorman-002.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
They used to hide behind this cloak of objectivity and fairness and the fact that they weren\u2019t biased and that they weren\u2019t liberals and didn\u2019t have any opinions whatsoever, that they were professional journalists. Well, you introduce competition into the news business, and, lo and behold, look what happened. They began to stake out exactly who they are. They stopped hiding who they are. They started proclaiming what they believe.<\/p>\n
Well, they still try to claim objectivity, but they\u2019re making no bones about the fact that they are uber-leftists, and they\u2019re doing their best to persuade as many people as they can to join them. They\u2019ve become activists. They\u2019re not journalists any longer, despite what they may think. But the audience now is well over 25 million, the weekly “cume,” not 14 to 15. That\u2019s a trade magazine that continues to use that number, which is where these people get it.<\/p>\n
But I\u2019ve always had the impression that he, Koppel, was intrigued. It\u2019s why he always had me on Nightline. He was intrigued; there wasn\u2019t anything like this program when it started. Brinkley had me on This Week with David Brinkley. Same thing. “There\u2019s no one like you,” he said. That\u2019s how unique conservatism in the national media was.<\/p>\n
“There\u2019s nobody like you. We don\u2019t have anything like this out there.” I heard it from Koppel, I heard it from Brinkley, and it was all about the fact that it was the first time that there was actual confident conservatism presented with fun and good cheer — for the first time — on a national media basis. They didn\u2019t quite know what to do with it, and they still don\u2019t.<\/p>\n
BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n
RUSH: This is Sandy in Atascadero, California. It\u2019s great to have you. I\u2019m glad you waited, sir. Hi.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Yeah, hi, Rush. Thanks a lot for taking my call. Say, I just gotta say quick kudos for what you were just talking about: Exposing the liberal media techniques to try to kind of fool people. I think, among other things, Trump\u2019s win kind of showed that, you know, the general population is not as stupid and not as unsophisticated as the liberal media tends to think — and that ties into what I was calling about. When you were talking earlier about Cronkite and Fairness Doctrines and equal-time issues, you know, it kind of struck me that, you know, you\u2019re right.<\/p>\n
Right after that time everything seemed to kind of change somewhat. But, you know, the thing that\u2019s always been interesting to me is, you know, oftentimes they talk about “white privilege,” and I think there has been a truth to that over the years. Well, I think nowadays we\u2019re facing “liberal privilege.” It seems like anything a liberal wants to say, whether it\u2019s on television or in public — wherever it may be — it\u2019s okay, and it\u2019s just accepted. And if you are so bold as to contradict them, you know, God have mercy on you.<\/p>\n
RUSH: It\u2019s hate! If you disagree with anything liberals believe, you automatically are declared to be a hater.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Yes.<\/p>\n
RUSH: This is how they silence people. It\u2019s either that or you are a racist. But primarily… If you disagree with gay marriage, if you disagree with rampant illegal immigration, you hate. You are a hater.<\/p>\n
CALLER: It\u2019s suddenly personal attacks. It\u2019s not a good conversation, a good back-and-forth of exchanging information. It\u2019s just these sudden personal attacks, and it\u2019s very difficult to handle. I\u2019ve even had one of my sons mention that, you know, he just has to be very careful what he says whenever he\u2019s in public just because, you know, of this very issue.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Look, they don\u2019t desire a cross-talk and back-and-forth. They don\u2019t want to debate anything. As far as they are concerned, your attitude, my attitude, my views, your views are illegitimate and ought not have a platform, ought not have a mechanism of amplification. They don\u2019t want a level playing field. They don\u2019t want anybody else on it. That\u2019s why they never… They haven\u2019t, in years, taken me on in terms of what I think about — pick an issue.<\/p>\n
Never once. Every attempt — and it\u2019s the same thing with Trump or anybody else on the right they have a problem with. They immediately smear. They make things up and then they start trying to attack character. They lie about things that you say, take things out of context, and then the mainstream media picks it up and amplifies it, and they basically attempt to destroy your reputation. They\u2019re not interested in what you think.<\/p>\n
They\u2019re not interested in what your son thinks. They don\u2019t care about free and open debate. You see, the truth of the matter is — and they will never admit this — they know they are in the minority. In terms of the general body of thought, the general mainstream body of thought in this country, they are still in the minority. By that, they know that a majority of what they want could not win in a free and fair national election.<\/p>\n
So since that\u2019s the case, they bully and maneuver, and they have deep state people write regulations to enact — or judges to enact — what they believe, things they cannot succeed in winning in a national election. I know they win some elections, folks. Don\u2019t misunderstand. But we haven\u2019t lost the country, is my point. They are not the majority of thought. But they present themselves as the majority, and they are treated as the majority by the media.<\/p>\n
So an image is created that they are the majority and that you and I are the oddballs, the kooks and the freaks, when it\u2019s the other way around. But they can\u2019t prevail in an issue-by-issue debate with somebody who knows what they\u2019re talking about. So they don\u2019t even do that. They don\u2019t even allow that to happen (sigh) in a general sense. You may find exemptions to everything. I mean, you\u2019ll find a liberal on Fox News that will try to debate an issue, and if you pay very close attention, they\u2019re really besmirching people who believe things that they don\u2019t agree with.<\/p>\n
They\u2019ll roll an eye or they\u2019ll say, “Oh, Rush Limbaugh? Come on! Don\u2019t quote him. You can\u2019t be serious,” things like that, rather than actually take on an issue point by point and try to win, because they can\u2019t. They know they\u2019re the minority.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
RUSH: He's really lamenting the loss of the media monopoly the left had.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":303070,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[12,1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n