There's some talk among Democrats about reviving the Fairness Doctrine. Democrats, liberals, progressives, and moonbats love the Fairness Doctrine, not because it is necessarily fair but that it has the effect of squelching discourse they dislike.
The Fairness Doctrine purports that coverage of controversial issues be covered in a fair and balanced manner by broadcast stations. The theory is that access to television and radio is limited and because of this, broadcasters shouldn't be allowed to become advocates of any particular perspective. Indeed, at the time that the Fairness Doctrine was first discussed, radio (which was the only medium available) did, indeed, have a limited number of frequencies. Many places were only reached by one or two radio stations, and so people received all their information through those limited sources. That any one viewpoint would dominate such restricted outlets would have been problematic. This doctrine worked fairly well for decades to stop broadcast advocacy. The problem is that stations didn't want to deal with balancing viewpoints and so most simply didn't carry viewpoints at all.
Ronald Reagan's FCC started basically ignoring the Fairness Doctrine (by not prosecuting offenders) during the mid-1980's. In 1987, however, a Democratic Congress decided to put the Fairness Doctrine into law by passing legislation requiring the FCC to follow its dictates. President Reagan vetoed the legislation, as did President George H.W. Bush when the legislation was reintroduced.
There's no doubt that the demise of the Fairness Doctrine was a boon for conservative talkradio as well as conservative television shows (the various talk shows on FOX News, for example). Rush Limbaugh is the most listened-to talk show in America with approximately 20 million people listening to his show each week. Most of the most popular talk shows are conservative--Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck--and most cities are dominated by conservative talk radio.
On the other hand, liberal talk radio shows have never had the success or audiences of conservative shows. Beleaguered Air America is in bankruptcy and has always had problems competing anywhere but in the most liberal of cities.
The reason Democrats love the Fairness Doctrine is that they assume it will either muzzle conservative hosts or prop up their pathetic alternatives. The fact that so few people want to hear their shows should be an indication to them that it is their message that's not playing in Peoria. Aside from Al Franken and, perhaps, Randi Rhodes, does anyone even know the names of the other Air America personalities? I doubt it, and that's the biggest problem with liberal talk radio. It's neither informative (they simply repeat the same tired talking points) nor entertaining (how many ways can you call George Bush a stupid monkey?). The left has pretty much run out of insults and the ones they come up with aren't even funny.
While liberals are excited at the idea of reinstituting the Fairness Doctrine, there's a couple of big problems for them. First, it's a certainty that President Bush would veto such legislation and even if (and it's a big if) Democrats can retake one or both houses of Congress, they will not be able to muster enough support for the legislation to override the veto.
The second problem is the Supreme Court. In 1969, the Supreme Court explained the rationale for the Fairness Doctrine in Red Lion Broadcasting Co. Inc. v. FCC.
"A license permits broadcasting, but the licensee has no constitutional right to be the one who holds the license or to monopolize a...frequency to the exclusion of his fellow citizens. There is nothing in the First Amendment which prevents the Government from requiring a licensee to share his frequency with others.... It is the right of the viewers and listeners, not the right of the broadcasters, which is paramount."
The problem with this reasoning today, in my opinion, rests on an incontrovertable fact: there are a far greater number of frequencies both on radio and television than there could have been predicted in 1969. We now have cable and satellite with literally hundreds of channels available. Gone are the days when most places might get ABC, NBC, and CBS solely. Today, a person can get every variation on a sports channel, 100 music channels, and any number of weather channels along with the various news and entertainment channels. In short, is the Fairness Doctrine needed in a world that has so many choices? The obvious answer is "no."
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