Enter The Fairness Doctrine
It could be that many don’t remember just how horrible the little piece of legislation known as the Fairness Doctrine really was. Democrats seem to be counting on that for the 2006 elections as they hope to win back Congress and from the latest drumbeating seem ready to reinstate it.
To give you a little history, The Fairness Doctrine began as a weapon to silence political opponents by claiming that the public airwaves required “equal time” be given to all opposing points of view. It was haphazardly enforced, mostly when someone without power was saying something on the air that offended someone with power. In other times, that might be called stifling of free speech. Liberals just call it fair.
In the 1980’s the Reagan administration killed the inappropriately named Act as an embarrassment to free speech rights in this country. See, the trick wasn’t that they didn’t want everyone to have their say. On the contrary, they wanted everyone and their grandfather to have their say. But “equal time” wasn’t being given. Radio stations and then TV stations it turned out were businesses and sought to make a profit as many businesses do. They discovered that if they had to air equal amounts of opposing political commentary, their listeners might tune out for a whole side of the debate due to unpopularity or just due to the tastes of the listener. This cost the stations advertisers and thus political programming proved to be more trouble than it was worth.
Public service messages were reduced from political discussions to PSA’s like “Don’t drown your food” and “Conjunction Junction”. Not that there was anything wrong with Conjunction Junction, mind you. True political discussion seemed allowed only on NPR. The discussions there were (and are) left-centered usually and when “counterpoints” were offered, it was usually by other liberals; so much for that being fair.
By ridding the airwaves of the Fairness Doctrine, the marketplace was again able to dictate which ideas were popular among listeners and which weren’t. Starting with Rush Limbaugh, a whole waive of liberal and conservative commentators took to the air to express their points of view, much as bloggers are doing now. The market shook them out pretty heavily. In general, conservatives edged out liberals in the radio markets. Many hosts just plain failed. Some liberal hosts survived, but in fairly small numbers of markets. Even the much vaunted “Air America” barely registers on the Aribitron readings in some of its cities, if at all.
This may not provide all points of view, but it also lets whoever has the money and air time exercise their right to free speech and share their own take on the political scene. Given that radio is not the only medium and that liberals still have the Big Three Networks, NPR, Air America, CNN, MSNBC and occasionally even Fox News to inform them, I don’t consider there to be a shortage of left-wing thought making it out to the American public.
Regulating speech, whether through McCain-Feingold or the Fairness Doctrine or some horrible future revision of either does not follow the principles of the Founding Fathers and does not retain for us the freedom endowed to us by our Creator. It’s a control mechanism designed to stifle thought and inhibit the spread of ideas. THAT is Orwellian and I take back that word from the hackneyed cliché it’s become over the years to describe anything the Left doesn’t like coming out of the current administration.
Is deciding who gets to speak fair? Is deciding which opinion gets air time and which doesn’t fair? Is it a sign of freedom or fascism? What Doctrine shall we file that under? How about the round file, where it belongs. Attempts to stifle free speech, especially if the Democrats do win back the Congress, will be varied and just as absurd. That’s an important thing to keep in mind when you go to the polls this November.
It could be that many don’t remember just how horrible the little piece of legislation known as the Fairness Doctrine really was. Democrats seem to be counting on that for the 2006 elections as they hope to win back Congress and from the latest drumbeating seem ready to reinstate it.
To give you a little history, The Fairness Doctrine began as a weapon to silence political opponents by claiming that the public airwaves required “equal time” be given to all opposing points of view. It was haphazardly enforced, mostly when someone without power was saying something on the air that offended someone with power. In other times, that might be called stifling of free speech. Liberals just call it fair.
In the 1980’s the Reagan administration killed the inappropriately named Act as an embarrassment to free speech rights in this country. See, the trick wasn’t that they didn’t want everyone to have their say. On the contrary, they wanted everyone and their grandfather to have their say. But “equal time” wasn’t being given. Radio stations and then TV stations it turned out were businesses and sought to make a profit as many businesses do. They discovered that if they had to air equal amounts of opposing political commentary, their listeners might tune out for a whole side of the debate due to unpopularity or just due to the tastes of the listener. This cost the stations advertisers and thus political programming proved to be more trouble than it was worth.
Public service messages were reduced from political discussions to PSA’s like “Don’t drown your food” and “Conjunction Junction”. Not that there was anything wrong with Conjunction Junction, mind you. True political discussion seemed allowed only on NPR. The discussions there were (and are) left-centered usually and when “counterpoints” were offered, it was usually by other liberals; so much for that being fair.
By ridding the airwaves of the Fairness Doctrine, the marketplace was again able to dictate which ideas were popular among listeners and which weren’t. Starting with Rush Limbaugh, a whole waive of liberal and conservative commentators took to the air to express their points of view, much as bloggers are doing now. The market shook them out pretty heavily. In general, conservatives edged out liberals in the radio markets. Many hosts just plain failed. Some liberal hosts survived, but in fairly small numbers of markets. Even the much vaunted “Air America” barely registers on the Aribitron readings in some of its cities, if at all.
This may not provide all points of view, but it also lets whoever has the money and air time exercise their right to free speech and share their own take on the political scene. Given that radio is not the only medium and that liberals still have the Big Three Networks, NPR, Air America, CNN, MSNBC and occasionally even Fox News to inform them, I don’t consider there to be a shortage of left-wing thought making it out to the American public.
Regulating speech, whether through McCain-Feingold or the Fairness Doctrine or some horrible future revision of either does not follow the principles of the Founding Fathers and does not retain for us the freedom endowed to us by our Creator. It’s a control mechanism designed to stifle thought and inhibit the spread of ideas. THAT is Orwellian and I take back that word from the hackneyed cliché it’s become over the years to describe anything the Left doesn’t like coming out of the current administration.
Is deciding who gets to speak fair? Is deciding which opinion gets air time and which doesn’t fair? Is it a sign of freedom or fascism? What Doctrine shall we file that under? How about the round file, where it belongs. Attempts to stifle free speech, especially if the Democrats do win back the Congress, will be varied and just as absurd. That’s an important thing to keep in mind when you go to the polls this November.
posted by Rob Beck | 6:28 AM
1 Comments:
Do remember that the Fairness Doctrine was used to greater effect by the so-called Right more-so than the Left, in this country. Nixon loved it, since it allowed him to dictate to the media. Reagan's people also used it before they helped abolish it. The FD, if it were to return, which is extremely unlikely, no matter what the talking heads on the radio say would not effect anyone, as it would never be applicable. The courts would tie it up for decades and it would never see the light of day. This, like so much that comes over the airwaves these days is just another scare tactic to convince people to return the Republicrats to office. Frankly, I'd rather see more Democrats elected and send the Republican majority home. Gridlock is infinitely better than what we currently have. The Republicans are managing to do more harm to the country than decades of Democrat incompetence have ever accomplished.Short of filling the Beltway with real Libertarians there is no solution other than to vote for gridlock.
As for freedom vs. fascism..we already have that in the form of the FCC.
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