Our own Congressman Greg Walden is carrying the conservative banner against attempts to reinstate the broadcasting “Fairness Doctrine.”
At a press conference in Washington this week, the Oregon Republican and Rep. Mike Pence, a Republican from Indiana, introduced the “Broadcaster Freedom Act,” an attempt to legislatively block the Federal Communications Commission from re-imposing the doctrine, which required radio and TV programming to maintain at least a semblance of political balance.
“The founders would spin in their graves at the thought of the government censoring speech on many of today’s radio and television stations,” Walden said in a prepared statement on his website. “Yet that’s just what some Democratic leaders seem to be after. Whether as a throwback to the old Fairness Doctrine or under a less controversial guise, any effort to exert government control over speech on the airwaves is an insult to the principles behind the First Amendment.”
The Fairness Doctrine was instituted in 1949 and remained in force until 1985, when Ronald Reagan’s FCC repealed it. The doctrine didn’t require broadcasters to provide equal time to opposing views, simply to give opposing views some airtime.
Walden and other conservatives like to portray the doctrine as an infringement of freedom of speech and of the press, but that’s a distortion. Under the Fairness Doctrine broadcasters were free to air any point of view they chose – they just were obliged to give a nod to other points of view.
In applying the First Amendment, American courts have long recognized a distinction between the print media – which pay for their own printing presses and their own paper – and broadcast media, which use a finite, publicly owned resource (the airwaves). The idea behind the Fairness Doctrine was to prevent broadcasters from using this resource to exclusively promote their own (or their advertisers’) political agenda.
As the US Supreme Court put it in upholding the constitutionality of the Fairness Doctrine in 1969: “A [broadcast] licensee has no constitutional right … 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.”
Despite the huffing and puffing from conservatives about “censorship,” it’s simply not true that the Fairness Doctrine censored anybody or prevented conservative opinions from being heard. “Indeed, the talk show format was born and flourished while the doctrine was in operation,” writes Steve Rendall of the progressive watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR). “Before the doctrine was repealed, right-wing hosts frequently dominated talk show schedules, even in liberal cities, but none was ever muzzled. The Fairness Doctrine simply prohibited stations from broadcasting from a single perspective, day after day, without presenting opposing views.”
Although a good logical and constitutional case can be made for renewing the Fairness Doctrine, it seems unlikely to happen any time soon. President-elect Barack Obama has said he has no interest in doing it, and Walden’s bill has 130 co-sponsors.
This article appears in Jan 8-14, 2009.
MAKE LOCAL JOURNALISM HAPPEN
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
You come to expect this sort of action from Walden who has hoodwinked so many Oregonians over the years.. But this more of the Republicans running scared, now that intelligence has re-entered politics and the American main stream with the Obama landslide. Can you imagine what would happen if Rush Limbaugh and Shawn Hannity stations had to actually have 2 points of view? They would be shown up for what they are mis-informed liars and hacks of the Republican party and the neocon movement.
I, for one, can not wait for the fairness doctrine to be reintroduced. It wil just continue the slide of the conservative movement in the US. May they rest in peace in the trash heap of discredited political parties in the world..
“Can you imagine what would happen if Rush Limbaugh and Shawn Hannity stations had to actually have 2 points of view? They would be shown up for what they are mis-informed liars and hacks”
There’s a reason why RUUUUuuuuuuusshhh never has any guests on his show to debate him and why they screen the callers so the only ones that get through either (a) agree with him or (b) are drooling idiots whom he can easily demolish.
RUUUUuuuuuuusshhh tried a debate format one time early in his career and was run off the stage — literally. He hasn’t tried it again since and never will. The man is a gasbag and a coward.
You have got to be kidding. Anyone who has followed this issue knows that the Fairness Doctrine has nothing to do with fairness. The reason Rush is so popular is that first and foremost, he is entertaining. Why did Franken and company fail so miserably at Air America? Because some corporate ideologue (an oxymoron by the way)didn’t like their message or politics? No, it was because Air America lost money. Why did AA lose money? Because no one listened. Why did no one listen? Because Franken and crew were boring, boring, boring; period – end of story. If this Fairness Doctrine comes about, can I expect to see/hear Rush on PBS or NPR where my tax dollars support such fair and balanced icons like Moyers? Right, I thought so.
Early on, in the LA market on KFI, the fledgling talk show market had what they called a ‘Meeting of the Mouths’ where all of the talking jocks spent a day at a table on open mike. Rush, Tom Leykis, and Dr. Laura were among those in attendance. The shallowness of Limbaugh’s intellect and his true character were never more apparent. He never returned for subsequent events.
I would think people who enjoy the right to free speech so much with the Bush bashing and all would want to defend that right.