RIP, Fairness Doctrine
In June, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Julius Genachowski told lawmakers the agency planned to strike the so-called Fairness Doctrine from the books. On August 22, the FCC made it official as part of a plan to remove outdated provisions and update others. As with many things, technology has changed the way media operates. With the proliferation of broadcast channels and satellite and internet radio, government-enforced “fairness” is obsolete.
“The Fairness Doctrine holds the potential to chill free speech and the free flow of ideas and was properly abandoned over two decades ago,” Genachowski said in a statement. “I am pleased we are removing these and other obsolete rules from our books.”
Created to “encourage and implement the broadcast of all sides of controversial public issues over their facilities, over and beyond their obligation to make available on demand opportunities for the expression of opposing views,” the Fairness Doctrine was enforced from 1949 to 1987 and required broadcast licensees to present both sides of a controversial issue. But it wasn’t all bad. After the Surgeon General linked smoking to lung disease in the 1960s, the FCC bowed to pressure and ordered stations to air one anti-smoking public service announcement for every three or four cigarette advertisements.
During the era of deregulation under President Ronald Reagan, the FCC stopped enforcing the Fairness Doctrine. In 1987, lawmakers attempted to codify the dead regulation, and Reagan vetoed the measure. They tried again in 1991, but George H.W. Bush threatened to veto. In its absence, conservative talk radio flourished, and — surprise! — liberals resented its success and wanted to resurrect the corpse.
When things aren’t going well for liberals, they fall back on their main source of control: government regulation. When outgunned and outmanned in the marketplace of ideas, they create more government regulations to inhibit the progress and success of winning ideas. When the liberal radio network Air America failed, for example, liberal politicians once again sought to use government power to chill conservative speech and stop what they considered to be attacks against liberals.
In 2007, Democrats were back in control of Congress after 12 years, eager to exercise their new power and leech off the success of conservative radio markets. Senator Bernie Sanders, Representative Dennis Kucinich, and others introduced legislation to restore the Fairness Doctrine, but got nowhere.
In an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times, Brian C. Anderson, author of South Park Conservatives, offered three reasons why conservative talk radio succeeded, and the same reasons explain why Air America failed: liberal talk radio is too politically correct to be entertaining; liberal talk radio’s potential audience is fragmented (“urban” radio, Spanish-language radio, etc.); liberals dominate old media — they don’t need talk radio because they have everything else.
Air America failed because most of it sounded petty, vindictive and spiteful without much basis in rational thought or facts but a lot of name-calling. Most of it was pretty incoherent. While you may not agree with conservative radio, you can at least understand the argument/position being put forward and it’s basis.
I used to listen to Air America, hoping to learn something about the liberal side of the business. What I heard instead was not reasonable. It was name calling, entitlement oriented, buzzword laden nonsense. There was no comparison of before/after political views. There was no contrast of positions.
It was spiteful nastiness. Not even Liberal Leftists wanted to listen to that kind of crap.
“Liberals dominate major newspapers, magazines, and television networks. They rule Hollywood. They’ve got taxpayer-supported NPR and PBS. What more do they want?”
Liberals want to control peoples thought – they cannot stand the idea of people even questioning in their minds the wisdom of the progressive collective mentality. Loberals honestly belive that Freedom – independent of the state collective – is unacceptable on any level.
The second good thing to happen under Obama’s tenure, after taking out Osama. Maybe we’ll get one or two more before 2012.
#3. aclay1: “The second good thing to happen under Obama’s tenure, after taking out Osama. Maybe we’ll get one or two more before 2012.”
Well he did have those SEALs snipe the Somali pirates who’d kidnapped that ship captain…but your point is well-taken, anyway.
“Well he did have those SEALs snipe the Somali pirates who’d kidnapped that ship captain…”
What he actually did was allow the SEALs to forge ahead with their mission, evidently rather reluctantly due to the amount of time he spent thinking about it first before giving his okay.
Don’t be to sure he allowed anything. I suspect somebody put his career on the line to do the right thing. Since it turned out well, of course The One took credit for it, and nothing was said. Publicly.
I’d love to be able to chase down all those involved, and find out if they still have their careers intact.
Is the Fairness Doctrine being discarded in order to justify Net Neutrality?
once they get an idea in their heads they NEVER stop… they’re just regrouping, they will come at this from a different angle, you can count on it.
I agree. The wolf is just changing its clothes, that’s all. Time to double our vigilance.
Bingo. Keep your zombie ammo dry.
There’s always that “executive order” BS that Blammo likes so much.
The Fairness Doctrine was never implemented fairly to begin with.
I lived through that era, the 1960s and 1970s.
“Fairness” meant that Eric Sevareid got two minutes of prime time on the CBS Evening News to spout his liberal-slanted commentary, most weeknights at around 7:25 PM. Before an audience of tens of millions, because back then the three major network newscasts commanded a huge audience share.
Under the Fairness, Doctrine, CBS “recognized their responsibility to present responsible opposing viewpoints.” And they did–by selecting some largely unknown local official or private citizen who had no experience on TV to reply to Sevareid. At 10:57 PM, just before the 11 O’Clock News, when most Americans were either asleep or getting ready for bedtime.
Liberals got prime time, 5 nights a week.
Anyone else got just one attempt at a reply, at 10:57 PM.
I’m curious how having a rule that says both sides of a controversial issue must be offered to the public is bad.
In the 1970s, more than 75% of the public trusted the media and in the 50s and 60s that number was in the 80% range. Today, about 65% don’t trust what they hear in the media. That decline goes hand in hand with the rise of conservative talk radio, which took off after the Fairness Doctrine was vetoed by President Reagan clearing the way to lie and misrepresent the facts.
Protecting so called freedom of expression by doing away with a doctrine that required fair and honest reporting by offering both sides an equal chance to express themselves meant it was more difficult for one side to lie.
Without the Fairness Doctrine that required both sides to have a chance to express them and prove their case in a debate over a controversial issue, we have turned freedom of expression into “Freedom to Lie” and Conservative Talk radio is full of lies and misinformation.
My beliefs are politically to the right. However, I listened to talk shows like Rush Limbaugh and Denis Prager for years and then I decided to take up Rush’s challenge to check out what he was saying to see if it was factual or not and discovered that most of what he claims is twisted and far from the actual truth.
I then decided to do the same for Prager and discovered the same misinformation and outright lies and exaggerations.
This is no way to run a democracy where people should be able to make decisions based on both sides of an issue instead of one side.
If liberal ideals are flawed, and many are, let them have their say instead of muzzling them.
If conservative talk radio has nothing to fear, then there is no reason to only hear their side of an issue from hundreds of national, regional and local talk shows, while the other side has no voice.
I voted for Reagan until I discovered his lies and he was the liar that vetoed fairness and honesty, then I left the GOP and became an independent voter. I still stand behind the right to bear arms but I also feel a woman has the right to decide for herself if she has an abortion or not based on her freedom to decide what she believes or not in relation to God or religion. I may not believe in it being right to abort a life but I will not support laws that take another person’s right to make that decision away from them because of my personal beliefs.
In the 1960s through the 1980s, the media was controlled by hundreds of independent companies and had many voices. Today, there are about six giant corporations that control the media in America and only one of them is owned by an American company—the rest are now controlled by people like the Australian neoconservative Murdock, the billionaire that controls News Corp, the owner of Fox. People that once worked for Fox say that what the news will say and what it will focus on comes down in the form of memos each morning. Reporters and editors do not have total freedom to report the news without this guidance.
The foundation for neoconservatism is the “noble lie”, which is not dead, and it is a fact that when President Reagan lived in the White House, he won the election by courting the neoconservatives and evangelical Christians to gain their votes.
The result, when President G. W. Bush lived in the White House, his staff was all neoconservatives and after 9/11, the US went to war in Iraq based on the lie that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, which were never found.
When G. W. was elected president, the National Debt was about $5 trillion. When he left the White House, eight years later, the National Debt was more than $10 trillion, the US was embroiled in two wars and has suffered the deepest economic crises since the Great Depression due to deregulation and a Wild West mentality in the stock market and banking industry.
No, we need a Fairness Doctrine, so we hear more than one side of an issue. If conservative political and religious agendas and idealistic beliefs are superior, there is no need to fear airing both sides of a controversial issue in a fair and honest way because if liberal ideals are flawed, the public will make the right decision when the vote.
After all, Abraham Lincoln was correct when he said, “You can fool some of the people most of the time and most of the people some of the time but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time”.
And Abraham Lincoln was a Republican.
What is there to fear about a fair and honest debate except fear itself? Instead, without the Fairness Doctrine to insure a fair and honest debate, we encourage lies and deceit to influenced voters until we are where we are today with a gridlocked congress.
Did you know that many of President Obama’s White House staff are closet neoconservatives that did not leave the Democrat Party to join Reagan and the Republicans? There are now neoconservatives in powerful position in both parties.
In fact, Obama taught at the University of Chicago Law Department surrounded by neoconservative idealists, who must have had an influence in some of his thinking, and Obama admires President Abraham Lincoln.
I find it interesting that when Obama moved into the White House, he kept many people in leadership positions in the federal government that had been appointed by President Bush and Obama’s war record is that of a neoconservative.
Is Obama a wolf in sheep’s clothing?
“I’m curious how having a rule that says both sides of a controversial issue must be offered to the public is bad.”
The “bad” part is the word “must”.
As many have said before – we already hear the liberal/leftist/progressive side on national TV (CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, etc.). Where was the fairness in that? By the way, I realized in the 80′s that we have abortion because the national press decided we should. No fair coverage of opponents, etc. Just imply and outright lie about the people who were against it. THAT’S when I realized the media had been manipulating us all along, only more subtly.
Your rant about “fairness” and the “lies” of talk radio are too ridiculous to respond to, except to comment that radio station operators should not be forced to give up air time to special interests that will cause them to lose listeners and sponsors. Would the New York Times agree to such legislation regarding their editorials?
But this is too much:
“I find it interesting that when Obama moved into the White House, he kept many people in leadership positions in the federal government that had been appointed by President Bush…”
Before Bush left Office, some of those appointee jobs were converted into permanent jobs, so Obama couldn’t fire those people to replace with his own. But instead, Obama appointed 32 “Czars” – from WMD Policy Czar to Weapons Czar to Terrorism Czar, etc., etc., etc. These positions are nothing more than payoffs to supporters.
“….. and Obama’s war record is that of a neoconservative.
Is Obama a wolf in sheep’s clothing?”
That’s funny. Obama by-passed Congress for his paper tiger war with Libya, at the bidding of the UN, to fight for European oil interests. Bush, on the other hand, had the approval of Congress. And at the time, many Democrats believed that Hussein did have WMDs. I guess that’s why Obama create his WMD Czar, who probably informed him that Qadaffi didn’t have enough weapons of mass destruction to worry about retaliation.
http://pajamasmedia.com/tatler/2011/05/04/libya-vs-iraq-obama-is-awesome/
First of all the Fairness Doctrine,was never meant to be FAIR..the Liberals control most of the Popular Media, In Television, Newspapers, Hollywood etc.And the So called PBS stations..It was only after Conservative Talk Radio Blossomed did the Liberals Start Squealing about the UN-Fairness Doctrine. You attack President Reagen, and Bash Bush as a NeoCon, and you are for Abortion? and you call yourself a Independent? As Rush has stated before There are no Independents because they ARE Democrats, or should be….
There is something wrong here! The progressives absolutely believe that Conservatives on talk radio, FOX and the internet have an unfair advantage and that the NYT, MSNBC and the like, are the only “fair” communicators.
This administration, the most back-door bunch ever, would never throw in this hand without having some other scheme to accomplish the same goal.
But it wasn’t all bad. After the Surgeon General linked smoking to lung disease in the 1960s, the FCC bowed to pressure and ordered stations to air one anti-smoking public service announcement for every three or four cigarette advertisements.
Why was that not “all bad”? Why should stations be forced to give away free air time for “public service announcements” (euphemism for “govt.-sponsored propaganda”) attempting to squelch the legal consumption of a legal product? At the very least, the anti-tobacco crusaders should have been required to purchase the time for their PSAs at the exact same rate as the cigarette ads.
In 1971, of course, the FCC banned cigarette ads entirely. Then the official persecution of the tobacco business (and its customers) began in earnest.
Liberals, of course, have never figured out that their free-speech rights do not compel anyone to read what they write or listen to what they say. So when the vast majority reject their message and ignore them, they whine & throw temper tantrums.
I occasionally wonder if Sirius/XM has lobbied Democrats in Congress to revive the Fairness Doctrine. After all, if the 1st Amendment is again repealed on traditional radio/TV, conservative talkers will have little choice but to follow Howard Stern to satellite — thereby causing a huge increase in subscriptions and receiver sales.
Is the O guy a wolf in sheep’s clothing – hardly !
He is a wolf who has lost his fleece – just another run of the mill wolf who was good at organizing acorns!
Obama is playing along with an act being conducted by several intelligence agencies. I believe Wikileaks has the “real” birth certificate on him (or other damaging documents). Eventually they will leak something that triggers a constitutional crisis, ushering in some form of new governance for America and the world.
Watch the sky, if you want to know where our new leaders will come from — NASA is about to get some strong competition.