Proposed FCC Rule a disguised 'Fairness Doctrine'

American Thinker ^ | November 13, 2008 | Rick Moran

[Mojave]

No one is entitled to access the public airwaves.

Cite, please.

[mtnwmn]

He was at one time...not now.

[P-Marlowe]

From what I understand about the original Fairness Doctrine it would only affect talk or opinion oriented formats, not news or groups who are not discussion politics openly.

Are you forgetting who is in charge now?

If they can censor and control political speech under the guise of multiculturalism and political correctness, they can control and censor religious speech. Religious talk shows, religious teaching programs, will all be subject to these regulations, as will stations that play only Christian music.

This is the death of Christian radio.

[hannibal9]

The Fairness Doctrine initially required that during the airing of controversial issues of public significance, if an:

“attack is made upon the honesty, character, integrity or like personal qualities of an identified person or group,” then:

the station must give timely notice to the attacked person or group and a reasonable opportunity to respond.

Additionally, it required that if a broadcast licensee endorses or opposes a legally qualified candidate in a televised editorial, then that candidate must receive timely notice and be given a reasonable opportunity to respond.

However, the only laws still on the books associated w/the fairness doctrine are the political broadcasting provisions, §§ 312(a)(7) (reasonable access) and 315 (equal access, lowest unit pricing), and their implementing regulations.

Technically the Fairness Doctrine was only an advisory policy of FCC after 1980s research revealed that it had technically never been attached as part of the statute. Nonetheless, the Supreme Court upheld the Fairness Doctrine in Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC; and to this day it has not been overruled.

However, in 1971 Congress made clear that § 315 applied to cable operators (§ 312(a)(7)) does NOT apply b/c revocation of license is punishment and cable operators are not licensed by the FCC, rather local franchising boards.

The Fairness Doctrine, if it were to apply at all, would only apply to the broadcast medium as the airwaves are owned by the public and licensed to broadcasters (i.e., CBS, NBC, Fox, etc.).

The Fairness Doctrine would have no effect on cable, magazines, newspapers, movies, etc. (other than equal access and pricing: if I sell ad space to Group A, then I also have to offer to sell ad space to Group B at the same rate).

The original purpose of the Fairness Doctrine was to ensure that average citizens, like you and me, would have an opportunity to respond if a public figure, pundit, or other individual with greater access to the broadcast medium attacked us.

Notice the requirements of the Fairness Doctrine are very similar to that of defamation (i.e., character).

Do not forget the public airwaves belong to the people of the United States and the broadcasters are only licensees, they do not own them.

Interestingly, the Fairness Doctrine was designed for individuals like Joe the Plumber. It would have provided him an avenue to address, likely during the prime time news hour, the attacks leveled against him.

That being said, the current head of the FCC was appointed by Bush (as Obama will appoint the next head of the FCC). One of the difficulties of all administrative agencies is that almost all of the employees will eventually work for the companies they are regulating.

Here’s the bottom line: the mass media and the telecommunications giants have their interests consistently served by the FCC. Thus, if it doesn’t make money, it won’t get passed. If the Fairness Doctrine will cause a major loss in profits for these companies, then forget about it ever being implemented.

The rest is rhetoric from both sides.

[RightWhale]

Laura Ingraham says she has revamped her show to combat the Fairness Doctrine, but it is so stereotyped now it is comedy.

[verklaring]

The American Thinker article omits the last paragraph of the DC Examiner article. It is as follows:

If this proposed regulation is adopted, political activists with ideological agendas on advisory boards will be able to dictate content by producing allies to complain that their interests are not being considered. Christian radio stations will be forced to air programs advocating abortion and gay marriage, which they oppose as a matter of religious conviction. Conservative talk radio stations will be forced to subsidize liberal programming that can’t attract commercial support. Failing to do so would mean loss of the broadcast license. This proposal is clearly antithetical to the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech and religion. It will undermine an uncensored, independent press in a free society as a tool for holding politicians and bureaucrats accountable, and make government the arbiter of acceptable religious doctrine.

This would be the end of Christian Broadcasting, you would have to allow other religions, Islam, Wiccan etc. as well as approved alternative doctrinal view points.

[aWolverine]

Defund the FCC.

What, and risk unfettered exercise of the 1st amendment? Are you mad? What do you propose next, defunding the BATF and inviting unhindered exercise of the 2nd amendment? Just walk on down the list of amendments, you nut. If you defund the government offices that restrict freedom, the ENTIRE CONSTITUTION is likely to be active! Gawd almighty...you people are crazy!

[Kackikat]

The problem is there are more who are easily deceived than not, and no loyalty...the minute one trashes a leader it seems everyone wants to jump on the bandwagon. What annoys me about it is that our tongues are the guides of what we get, and what we say is usually what we get...so instead of negative everything we should be speaking positive things especially about our President, and praying about what we disagree with...unless it requires action.

[P-Marlowe]

So? Why is Christian radio entitled to access the public airwaves? There is unlimited Internet bandwidth which is privately held. Radio space, on the other hand, is finite. The First Amendment doesn't guarantee anyone a forum.

Jude, I just knew I could count on you to give the wrong answer. You have become a knee jerk liberal.

The radio airwaves (right now) are part of the free market and the free exchange of ideas. Churches have just as much a right to purchase a radio station as godless media organizations. They compete on the open market for these licenses and those who purchase them have the right of free expression of ideas.

But it seems to me that you are in agreement that as long as the GOVERNMENT owns the airwaves, that the GOVERNMENT has a right to dictate what is broadcast and to limit as much as the GOVERNMENT decides who can broadcast and what they can broadcast.

But jude, the airwaves belong the the people. And under the constitution the GOVERNMENT does not have the right to prohibit the free exercise of religion or to abridge the freedom of speech.

But then who the hell cares about the constitution these days. It only means what your liberal buddies say that it means, and in this case it would mean that as far as the airwaves are concerned, only speech that meets the approval of the GOVERNMENT will be broadcast over the GOVERNMENT's airwaves.

Spit.

[theBuckwheat]

Owners of AM radio stations should know this means that the death of talk radio will mean the death of a lot of AM stations.

[BigBobber]

And the current system is broken, how? I don’t have any problem finding either left or right wing radio in my area or when I travel.

What is the impetus for a change in rules?

[CMAC51]

Not really. This is much more about stations broadcasting about the local community sufficiently. It wouldn’t weigh conservative v. liberal programming. This has been something that licensees have been required to do pretty much since the FCC came into existence. Looks like they are just creating a Board to enforce it as that would get a quicker response than petitioning the FCC.

Nice try but no sale. This would put control of programming content in parties who do not have an economic interest in the success of the enterprise (otherwise known as the free market). The boards would be subverted by interest groups which are not the true market of the station. BAD! BAD! BAD. Success in the free market should determine the success of a broadcast entity.

[griswold3]

I’ve been warning about this for a while. Seems the ‘progressives’ have plans to be on many boards. Do we?

[TChris]

The FCC's sole, legitimate purpose, IMO, is to regulate and license the use of EM bandwidth, enforce rules regarding interference and power output, etc. and THAT'S IT.

For the Fed Gov to regulate the content of what is put on the air, except for profanity/decency, is plainly unconstitutional.

[Leftism is Mentally Deranged]

Rush, tell your listeners to contact their criminal-legislators in Washington. Forget contacting Bush, he’s useless.

[bert]

Care to comment?

*********
There is currently under way an effort to return the Fairness Doctrine that will in effect limit free speech on the public airways. The Federal Communications Commission can reinstate the rule with no action by the US Congress or the President. The thought is that utterances on the radio must be fair and that a second view must be given equal time.

The public airways are actually a spectrum that has been divided into numerous specific frequency ranges that are corridors along which a radio wave carrying information is transmitted. These discrete licensed spectra are in actuality corridors along which information is carried. This proposed action regulating the information carried is a Federal matter since the airways are considered to be part of interstate commerce and require a Federal license. The states have no say in the matter.

The purpose of this essay is to develop a logical thought pattern that will permit the various States to gain some control of intra state transmission of information. That would be particularly true of my State, Tennessee.

Within the State of Tennessee information is transmitted and transferred by several methods but in this piece consideration will be restricted to two, printed publications and cable TV.

All printed material be it newspapers manufactured within the state borders or magazines, CD’s, DVD’s, recorded tapes or other similar publications from numerous sources are transported on the Tennessee public streets, roads and highways. These transportation corridors are in every respect similar to the spectral corridors regulated by the FCC except the roadways are regulated by the state of Tennessee. It is there fore a very logical step to conclude that based on the logic of information flow regulation by the FCC over federally regulated corridors, a similar regulatory body can be established by the State to assure that fairness is achieved in information carried or transported on the state regulated corridors and roadways. Printed publications must be fair to be transported over public ways.

In a similar vein, the state of Tennessee should be able to regulate the use of rights of way that are actually part of the same streets, roads and highways noted above. These rights of way are heavily used for various purposes including the physical presence of fiber optic and coaxial cable that are in fact information corridors similar to the FCC regulated corridors that are the public airways. The cable companies transporting on the public rights of way should be subject to the same fairness regulations governing the printed media transported on the adjacent roadways. Cable information must be fair to be transported over public rights of way.

There is no difference. Printed media and cable TV information are both transported along public ways .There is no difference between printed medis transported over public roads and voice utterances transmitted over radio waves. Thoughts are transmitted over public ways.

Then there is the question of the first amendment and free speech. It can be argued that such regulation is a violation of the First Ammendment to the Constitution. That is obviously not the case or the FCC would not be able to impose the Fairness Doctrine. There is no action in the regulation preventing the free exercise of the right to say what ever the writer or publisher or news commentator desires. They can say what ever they want with no fear of any retribution by the State of Tennessee. If they desire to propagate the speech using the public ways, then they are subject to fairness regulation. The precedent for the State regulatory authority is the FCC regulated Federal authority.

If the public ways are restricted, then how can the speech material be propagated? The answer is quite simple. If the speaker wants to sell his material, he can set up a place of business where the public can come and buy what ever is for sale. The speaker can also go into an out of door site and speak whatever comes to mind to all within earshot. His rights of free speech are not restricted by regulations of the transport of the medium packets. It is the transport of those information packets on public ways that is regulated.

[texmexis best]

With the advent of voier the air digital radio, a radio station can broadcast multiple channels over one frequency. This is not satellite radio but uses special transmitters and encoders that are fairly cheap. Think interms of over the air radio cable.

There will many more channels available in the near future than there are now and the Fairness doctirne as well as these new rules are quite obsolete. We know have very few limits to channel availability.

[enat]

“Kiss Christian Radio goodbye”

It’s like this. Since in the sexual orientation hate crime battle it is not the fact but the perceived inclination that counts, and no one can question perceived inclination, at the Board of Directors meeting of our Christian radio station(WIHS 104.9 FM)Friday, I am going to volunteer to be the eclectic inclinationer for pagans, moslems, atheists, Democrats, and various other abberrant groups. I will the “Martin Eisenstadt” of the Fairness Doctrine; the “lifelong whatever” of the past election cycle that needs to fulfill the Doctrine.

I even have Dr. E. to vouch for my lifelong passion to be a pagan; thwarted by God, but inclining.

[rockinqsranch]

Interesting. I was MP in Uijongbu ‘66-’68. Never heard of those rules, and I was heavily involved in much of the activities policing the bars. It’s interesting what can happen in just a few years time.

[Mojave]

No one is entitled to access the public airwaves.

Cite,please.