There's no such thing as "Freedom of Television"

Every Dallas City Council meeting, whether it's an agenda meeting or a briefing meeting, ends with time being handed over for citizens, each of whom is given three minutes, to say whatever is on their minds. There's a band of regulars who attend these meetings, just so they can rant at the end of them, usually about perceived racial injustices, kids in West Dallas dying from lead poisonings or just about how evil those sitting on the council really are. Sometimes these rants can be funny, but more often than not they have no foundation in fact, they are disrespectful, they are bigoted, and they are on topics the city council has absolutely no control over.

About a month or so ago I noticed while watching a city council meeting on television, the feed ended before the speakers were allowed to speak. No great loss, I thought to myself, someone had just flipped the switch too quickly by accident. But then it happened again the following week and soon newspaper stories started appearing about this new policy that no one at the city was claiming responsibility for.

At today's meeting, however, Mayor Leppert came forth and said he's the person responsible for ordering the television blackout on these speakers. I kinda wish the person responsible had been the city manager so it wouldn't have become such a political issue, but there you have it and it did. But it quickly became the wrong kind of political issue -- people like city council person Angela Hunt, whose rapidly becoming known as someone on the wrong side of every debatable issue, tried to turn it into a Freedom of Speech issue.

This has nothing to do with Freedom of Speech. No one's speech is being limited. These lunatics still have the same opportunity to stand up at the end of every city council meeting and spout their messages of hate and stupidity. No one is stopping them from doing that.

Here is a quote from Angela Hunt today: "We work for these folks, and I think it's inappropriate to limit their time. I will not be supportive of any measures to limit or otherwise curtail our bosses' ability to tell us what they want us to hear."

Well, Angela, no one is talking about "any measures to limit or otherwise curtail our bosses' ability to tell us what they want us to hear." They are just saying that we at home don't have to listen to that tripe.

Television executives make these types of decisions every day. It is now common, when televising sporting events, not to show some jerk rushing out on the field or somehow making some untoward commotion. Any psychologist will tell you that people will alter their standard behavior if they know that behavior might be captured on television. Television, in this case, is not a fly-on-the-wall chronicler of history in the making, but is complicit and an accessory in abysmal behavior.

So, Angela, and fellow council members Carolyn Davis and Vonciel Hill, please wake up and recognize this issue has nothing to do with Freedom of Speech but only with restricting broadcasting bad behavior on television. If these folks want to get their time on television, tell them to go to whatever Dallas Community Television is calling itself these days (you know, the clowns that keep coming back to you folks on the city council every year begging for more money and you keep making the mistake of giving it to them) and get their own television show. But they have no right to demand their remarks have to be telecast at the end of city council meetings.