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To: NoObamaFightForConservatives
The “fairness doctrine is just another way of “spreading the wealth” by effectively requiring popular conservative talk radio hosts and their advertisers to subsidize access to unpopular liberal talk radio hosts, who have very few advertisers.

With the said, I do not believe that the current Supreme Court will uphold the fairness doctrine as it has in the past if the doctrine as reinstated is an attempt to regulate speech (as opposed to regulating access to the public airways) or does not apply or is not enforced equally against broadcast television. In fact, I'm not convinced that the SCOTUS will uphold the fairness doctrine at all because the rationale for upholding the doctrine prior to 1987 no longer exists in that, unlike then, there are currently unlimited opportunities for the public to obtain information and divergent point of view, including broadcast TV and radio, cable TV and radio, satellite TV and radio, and most importantly, the Internet. Remember, the purpose of the fairness doctrine as previously upheld by the SCOTUS was not to guarantee equal access to the airways for the benefit of those people trying to deliver a message, but to ensure that the public, who owns the airways, is able to receive divergent points of view.

110 posted on 11/12/2008 2:25:26 PM PST by Labyrinthos
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To: Labyrinthos

Lots of us thought that the Supremem Court would do its duty and strike down McCain-Feingold and overturn the Connecticut Supreme Court on Kelo. How did that turn out?


126 posted on 11/12/2008 5:56:00 PM PST by rmlew (NYARLATHOTEP / BIDEN'08 . If you don't believe me check out the first's wikipedia page.)
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