I think people need to be a little more educated on the Fairness Doctrine. It doesn’t take radio stations off the air, per se, it doesn’t force a conservative to have liberals on his show. What it does do, in the short run, is force radio stations to allow liberals to buy equal time, or force them to run public service type programs in place of that equal time. What that will do in the long run, is force radio stations to either go out of business, because liberal radio does not generate revenue, or change their format from 24/7 conservative talk. In my area, we have one station that plays Beck, then Rush, then a local conservative, followed by Hannity. Fairness doctrine would force them to sell time to liberals, but if it’s like the old fairness doctrine, that time wouldn’t have to be primetime...so we’ll go back to liberals in the middle of the night. All this is predicated on the Fairness Doctrine being reinstated in the form it was in the 70’s.
Oh, god where to start. This Libtard says “I Think people need to be a little more educated” Dawn531 I think your peachy, I also think you are very very VERY wrong. When the “fairness doctrine” hits, just remember where you were, and what you were doing. This way , at least, in retrospect of youre opinion now, you can at least tell your grandkids about the way things used to be / were.
If I recall the formulation properly, the test was along the lines of “whether the station’s programming, taken as a whole, provides balanced treatment of all controversial issues.” It’s been a long time since I’ve looked at it, and my memory fades a bit.
I don’t believe that running leftist programming from midnight to 6 AM and conservative programming from 6 AM to midnight would have passed muster under the FCC’s enforcement of the fairness doctrine in, say, the 1960’s. Granted, that was the time (midnight to 6 AM) when most stations aired their PSAs (public service announcements) but fairness complaints attracted more attention.
“Equal time” for pro and con discussion of matters of public controversy was never required, but it became an easy way for a broadcaster to demonstrate balance. X hours pro and Y hours con is easy for a bureaucrat to understand. (The often confused “Equal Time” doctrine is still in effect and applies to political appearances and there are many exceptions to it, such as bona fide news programs.) What really happened, of course, is that few stations would take the chance of being challenged at license renewal time so instead of jumping through all the hoops required to demonstrate balance, they just didn’t cover controversial issues and did not have political talk shows.
There has been a lot of regulatory water under the bridge since the fairness doctrine went away. One can hope that the Supreme Court would find that the original scarcity argument for broadcast content regulation no longer holds and that broadcasters are protected by the First Amendment to the same extent print media is. But, given enough time for Zero to stack the Supreme Court, that’s a small reed upon which to lean.
Jack
Lets set the stage correctly for the Fairness Doctrine.
First, as it goes into affect...AM stations will try to set it to a court battle to the Supreme Court. They are the prime losers of this entire deal. I believe that the Supreme Court will agree that the President and the congress...have the authority to regulate the airwaves....so this case will wrap up quickly.
Then, as we stand in awe...satellite radio and internet radio quickly stand up...and the various talk-show hosts will basically dump AM radio. They will all move to vehicles which the FCC can’t control. All of us will buy satellite receivers and the entire market around satellite radio will triple overnight.
AM radio? Dies...a very miserable death by the 15th month of the Obama period. Congress will have to establish some kind of bailout but with only 30 percent of the profit rolling into AM radio...they are finished. Over 300 AM stations are finished by December of 2010. A few get bought by the government for more NPR networks...but the entire AM network will be finished.
The only real threat to Obama’s team...still firmly in place and solid across the entire US....meanwhile, the entire theme of election 2012...is the threat to freedom of speech and the threat to commercial radio. Obama will be standing there with reporters asking how AM can be saved...and he can’t really inspire anyone with the suggestion of “change”.
I see this Fairness trap as being a pit where he really loses folks. But here is the really amusing part of this fairness episode. We learn how to report questionable items to the FCC...to include ESPN, the Today Show, the View, and even Paul Harvey. There will be 150,000 complaints rolling in each week. As the FCC fails to act on items...lawsuits start up and claim special status for various networks. Even NPR will be facing a huge complaint listing that they can’t really argue against. Eventually....all of these players start to lose their commercial value as well. CBS news might even collapse with such huge weight on its shoulders to only report facts. I doubt that a guy can even broadcast Yankees games....without a fairness complaint being reported.