[griswold3]

In our new book Fleeced, my wife Eileen McGann and I also raise the prospect that the left will seek to enforce sections of the FCC law which require “community participation” in the “ownership and management” of radio stations. As the National Review has pointed out, this can be a cover for infiltrating boards of directors and programming departments with liberals – an effort to hijack talk radio.

Who needs Congress to pass a ‘Fairness Doctrine’ if you control the FCC and get them to do this?

[Congressman Billybob]

On Human Events I wrote an article entitled, "Anybody Remember the Red Lion Case?" That 1969 case upheld the Fairness Doctrine and its cousin, Equal Time, against challenges that those rules violated the First Amendment. To make a long story short, Justice White for the Court ruled that broadcast outlets were "scarce" compared to print media, which justified the rules.

Even then, the media outlets were about equal, so White's Opinion was about 20 years behind the technological curve. Today, almost half the daily newspapers which existed then, have disappeared. Meantime, media outlets have exploded into tens of thousands (TV) and hundreds of thousands (radio). And that's not counting the Internet, pod casting, etc.

So, the factual basis of the Red Lion case has not only disappeared, it has reversed. Only a grossly dishonest Supreme Court could possibly stand on Red Lion and uphold a new Fairness Doctrine, regardless of whether it came from a new FCC or a new Congress.

Of course, that discounts the possibility that President Obama would appoint dishonest Justices who would rule the way the politics dictated, and say to Hell with the Constitution.

Congressman Billybob

Ninth in the ten-part series, "The Owner's Manual (Part 9) -- The Bill of Rights"

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