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The Return of the Fairness Doctrine?
Slithe writes "Last week at the National Conference for Media Reform, Ohio congressman Dennis Kucinich (a long-shot candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination) stated that the Fairness Doctrine may be reinstated. Kucinich will be heading up a new House subcommittee that will focus on issues around the FCC. The Fairness Doctrine was an FCC regulation that required broadcast media to present controversial issues in an honest, equal, and balanced manner. The FCC repealed it in 1987 — Democrats at the time tried to forestall this move but were ultimately thwarted by a veto by President Ronald Reagan. Critics of the Fairness Doctrine have stated that it was only used to intimidate and silence political opposition. At the convention, Kucinich said, 'We know the media has become the servant of a very narrow corporate agenda. We are now in a position to move a progressive agenda to where it is visible.'" In the interest of fairness, here is a Republican, free-market perspective on the return of the Fairness Doctrine.
Back in the day, I believe they did just that. IIRC when the fairness doctrine first came out, the networks were scrambling trying to find some conservative spokesmen in order to satisfy the rule. I specifically remember one hilarious episode of All In The Family that had this as a plot premise where Archie was tabbed as a conservative spokesman by a local TV station. On his first show, Archie came out with his plan to end airline hijackings. Archie wanted to give every passenger a hand gun when they entered the plane because then any potential hijacker "would be insane to try anything".
So, the Fairness Doctrine was rooted in the idea that if you're using the public airways, you needed to do so in a manner that benefited the public. It's the same basic idea that forced TV and radio stations to put on public interest shows that nobody watched. It's a bad idea for a number of reasons:
(1) The public has already chosen what they like to listen to and watch -- the market can, and does, give people what they want.
(2) This is really just a back-door attempt to squelch a format where liberals have been unsuccessfully trying to penetrate for years: talk radio. The idea is to FORCE radio stations to pick up the next "Air America" if they're going to continue to broadcast Rush Limbaugh. But, (going back to #1), if nobody listens, is there a benefit? To Liberals there is -- by forcing "fairness," a Radio station will have to silence about half of its conservative voices.
(3) It's not like there's a paucity of available opinions -- the Internet has made it possible for every side to get its message out, with very little budget. Plus, things have changed since the days where CBS, NBC and ABC rules the TV airways. There are now hundreds of television stations.
(4) What about the First Amendment? Sure, the fact that they're public airways means that they are subject to some restrictions, but do we really want to add more limits on speech?
(5) Despite what Commissioner Copps said, it's not going to get rid of garbage TV (I'm thinking NBC's "Fear Factor" as a great example), because those shows don't espouse any political opinions.
The Democrats are beginning the process of making sure they're not re-elected in 2 years. Did any candidate run on the Fairness Doctrine?
Incidently, the differences between the Fairness Doctrine and Net Neutrality are: (1) one is content-based and one isn't and (2) Net-Neutrality regulates the information pipes, not the sources.
Who will police "fairness?" The FCC and ultimately the courts, as before.
"I don't see it being made better by putting the politicians in charge of it." And yet, it will. You may not be old enough to remember before the mid 1980s. Broadcast TV and radio were much more about facts and much less about FUD. You could see some of the fire because there was much less smoke.
Lifting of the Fairness Doctrine is directly responsibile for Rush Limbaugh's fame. With a Fairness Doctrine, Rush Limbaugh can't have a show.
I for one welcome the return of the Fairness Doctrine. Not all government regulation is bad.
As with so many things created by the government, the name is opposite to its effect. The Fairness Doctrine is not fair at all, but essentially eliminates the opportunity for political editorialization, of whatever stripe. Instead, we must be presented with "balanced" opponents, who are often anything but balanced.
As another comment said, conservatives now have Fox News and tal radio, while liberals have all of CBS, NBC, ABC, PBS, and CNN. That the liberals could not mount a successful talk radio operation is a primary motivating force for returning the Fairness Doctrine.
The effect of the Fairness Doctrine, overall, is antithetical to free speech, and in the presence of a rational court position, it should be found unconstitutional.
--- Bill
"It's equally hard for me to believe that you don't realize that Fox News is the quintessential "right wing" media."
Right, tell that Alan Colmes and Sheppard Smith. Oh right, when Compared to CNN, MSNBC, ABC, and CBS, Fox is "right wing". Can't have any "right wing" media, that's what this is all about.
Not that I am "right wing", because I'm not. I'm quite libertarian, and wish EVERYONE would stay out of my business, including do-gooders on both the "right" and the "left".
"There's a reason those two stand out in your mind. They're unusual."
"The reason there's no news about its mistakes is because they're not news - they're expected."
Uh huh. I can actually think of a few more cases, NBC blows up a truck, NY Times fabricating news, Fake stories in Washington Post. I can think of one from Fox, but it was parroted by all the other media as well, namely the "riots" at the superdome during Katrina.
News is biased. That is a fact. I would rather get my news from a source that has stated its bias rather (pun intended) than from people claiming unbias when I know that is impossible. Which is why I at least respect NPR, they make no bones about hiding their left wing bias.
I do have a question for you, why does the national news on ABC, NBC, CBS and CNN all have the exact same stories being reported, night after night? I mean each night all the networks report exactly the same news. I think it is crazy.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
How is the "fairness doctrine" different from Chavez putting all media under his direct command ?
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20030303/klein
I'm not sure if you're jesting or not, but what about Mormons and Muslims? I'm no fan of the moon-god-worshipping suicide bombers, but Mormons are pretty decent people. And both religions allow for multiple wives in a marriage. How do you outlaw that without trampling all over freedom of religion? What's more, certain sects of Mormons actually believe that a man HAS to have at least three wives in order to become a god. So their very salvation is at stake, in their minds, yet the government feels it's ok to prevent them from doing so.
I say, let consenting adults do what they want with each other, and keep the government out of our bedrooms and churches.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
The problem isn't lack of balance, it's lack of investigative reporting. Most issues aren't really left-vs-right, or A-vs-B, they're just reported that way. Most questions have a right answer and a wrong one, and it's the media's job to figure out which is which. Unfortunately, they've given up on that responsibility, because it's easier to just copy one press release from each side.
Being unbiased means forming an opinion based solely on the evidence. It doesn't mean refusing to form an opinion even when the evidence is clear. Yet that's what the media keeps doing.
Science is not a belief. Science is a method for determining how things work. It is firmly based in the idea that any belief can be wrong. Religion is belief. Religious belief often refuses to accept the possibility that it could be wrong.
Science doesn't fight religion, religion fights science. When scientists discover something that disagrees with a religion's belief, religion often chooses to simply say science is wrong, without looking fairly at the evidence. If it does look at the evidence, it often tries to argue based on faith and belief, rather than science.
Science, on the other hand, often looks at religion. It does this completely objectively most of the time. But science doesn't use belief or faith it it's work. It uses evidence. If it doesn't find evidence that supports religion, it says so.
You won't get science to use religion's rules. Science will not use faith or belief. If religion can't used science, then we're at an impass. If religion would like to use science, science will very happily welcome it.
BTW, ID doesn't really use science, even though it says it does. This is not a judgment of right or wrong, just an evaluation of their methodology. That's why science disapproves of ID. If ID actually used science to come to its conclusions, scientists would be very happy to look at the evidence.
TW
Surely you jest.
Mainstream media outlets owned by publicly traded corporations are the "right wing" media outlets. As for journalists themselves, they are mostly centrist, with a right-wing bias on economic issues.
(It is true that, like most educated and cosmopolitan people, journalists tend to be more liberal on social issues. Yes, I'm saying that conservative social positions correlate with provincialism and ignorance.)
It is the control of media by right-wing corporations (a large publicly traded profit-seeking corporation is, by definition, a right-wing entity, favoring capital over labor) that shuts off alternative viewpoints, and makes people wonder if a "fairness doctrine" might be the answer.
While the problem is real, the proposed solution sucks; a better idea is to restrict corporate ownership of media, preventing concentration of the control of information.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
That's not the case in the US. If you vote green, or libertarian, or whatever the hell pat buchanan ran under, you're essentially shooting yourself in the foot. The parties know this, the conservatives ran pro-nader ads in 2000. You can't vote third party in the US without getting the opposite of what you actually want.
Outside of a few party line issues, both the democrats and the republicans might be centrist wankers(Bush is much to pro-corporate and pro-big government for a true conservative and Kerry was much to conservative for a true liberal), but until or unless they change the system(or we get some major event like the civil war which got the republicans in as the first ever third party president in the first place), they're the two we've got.
If you want an effective way to actually change American politics, vote in primaries for the candidates which most closely follow your view points. If other people agree with you, maybe in another 50 years your major party of choice might be closer to your belief system.
2) The environment - not being conserved either; Teddy Roosevelt spinning in grave
3) Economy - allowing entities with special government protections (corporations) run roughshod over people who actually work and produce things
Basically, the people who think Bush is a conservative also see him as an ordinary, middle-class Texan, and not an ultra-rich spoiled Yale-educated Yankee frat boy whose daddy gave him every toy he wanted, including his very own country to play with.
I feel like death on a soda cracker.
Reagan wasn't a conservative, either. He was the beginning in a new line of neoconservative politicians.
Reagan wasn't a neocon, although he had them in his cabinet. Take this quote from him as an example:
The defense policy of the United States is based on a simple premise: The United States does not start fights. We will never be an aggressor. We maintain our strength in order to deter and defend against aggression -- to preserve freedom and peace.
Reagan choosing neocons over paleocons for certain positions is what started the slight split you see today.