There’s been a lot of talk in recent days about a revival of the Fairness Doctrine.
Senator John Kerry is calling for reimposition of the fairness doctrine.
In a radio interview on WNYC’s The Brian Lehrer Show, excerpted on YouTube, Senator Kerry said he thought the doctrine should return. Calling it one of the “most profound changes in the balance of the media,” he said conservatives have been able to “squeeze down and squeeze out opinion of opposing views. I think it has been a very important transition in the imbalance of our public dialog,” he said.
Kerry joins what appears to be a growing Democratic push-back against conservative talk radio, which flowered after the FCC in 1987 declared that the doctrine was unconsititutional. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) has called for the doctrine’s return, and Senator Diane Feinstein (9D-Calif,) says she is looking into it.
The fairness doctrine required broadcasters to afford reasonable opportunity for the airing of both sides of “issues of public importance.” The doctrine was scrapped in 1987 when the FCC concluded it had come up with the rule rather than it being imbedded in statute and thus could declare it unconstitutional. Congress then tried to imbed it in statute, but President Ronald Reagan vetoed the bill.
In 2000, a court also threw out corollaries to the doctrine that required broadcasters to provide response time to personal attacks and political editorials.
In other words, Democrats have decided that Air America’s a failed experiment, liberal talk radio can’t compete on an even playing field with conservative talk radio… so conservative talk radio must be dismantled.
In response, Indiana Congressman Mike Pence (himself a former talk show host) has introduced the Broadcaster Freedom Act, which would prevent the Fairness Doctrine from being reinstated.
Obviously I’m not a fan of the Fairness Doctrine. I think it was silly in the 1980’s, but it’s absolutely ridiculous in 2007. What would happen if the Fairness Doctrine was imposed again?
1- Most major talk shows would gravitate towards satellite radio. Congress doesn’t regulate speech on satellite radio, and they’d be hard pressed to come up with a reason why they should regulate private speech you have to pay to hear.
2- Local talk stations would wither on the vine. In some places you might see a “Supertalk 930 WKY” all-local format, but in most places they couldn’t pay hosts enough to make the format viable. With the demise of local talk comes the demise of local radio news.
3- Online media (including shows like “Cam and Company”) become much more popular. There will be no shortage of online shows for listeners to take advantage of.
The bottom line is this: those who want to regulate speech live in a very bad time to do so. Gone are the days when you needed a printing press or a broadcasting license to share your opinions with the world. The genie’s out of the bottle, and it’s not going back in. Rather than wasting time trying to stifle free speech, supporters of the Fairness Doctrine would be better off doing the following:
1- Get some real radio hosts who are progressive. Ed Schultz and Stephanie Miller put out good quality left-leaning talk shows. Air America does not. But two hosts are not enough… you need many more.
2- Realize that NPR is your competition, not your friend. NPR is liberal talk radio, whether you want to admit it or not. And they too put out quality programming. You want commercial liberal talk? End government funding of NPR.
3- Don’t be so damned impatient. Conservative talk radio is continually growing and evolving. Liberal talk radio will need time to catch up, and three years of sub-par broadcasting by Air America doesn’t help.
Radio is a business. When Clear Channel thought that Air America would add to their bottom line, they started adding Air America affiliates to their station lists. They’re not opposed to liberal talk, they’re opposed to shows that don’t make money. This is the free market at work. If you want to try and impose the Fairness Doctrine, then just admit you’re not a big believer in capitalism and the free marketplace of ideas.
[…] Cam Edwards has some good thoughts on the potential revival of The Fairness Doctrine: The bottom line is this: those who want to regulate speech live in a very bad time to do so. Gone are the days when you needed a printing press or a broadcasting license to share your opinions with the world. The genie’s out of the bottle, and it’s not going back in. […]
[…] Yes, let’s make it a law to have liberal talk radio. I mean, even if it is a market failure, we should mandate it by law. And since it’s all about fairness, we should mandate that Libertarians, The Constitution Party, The Communist Party, and others get equal airtime. […]
Just to add coal to the fire, many on the left seem to have absolutely no understanding of economics. Trying to get a borderline socialist to understand capitalism and why it is a better system always makes me think I am Don Quixote.
(Un)Fairness Doctrine…
Cam Edwards (of NRAnews.com) offers professional insight in warning us of the recent attempt to reimpose the Fairness Doctrine tyranny. I can’t believe anyone who recalls the frustrating/boring/stultifying broadcasts of that period could possibly tole…
[…] Sez Say Uncle: Yes, let’s make it a law to have liberal talk radio. I mean, even if it is a market failure, we should mandate it by law. And since it’s all about fairness, we should mandate that Libertarians, The Constitution Party, The Communist Party, and others get equal airtime. […]
I don’t think they realize that even if they mandate what they see as “equality”, they’re still not going to get anybody to listen. So the next move will be to mandate all citizens to listen to both equally? This is the type of thing that squeezed me out of the Democrat party.
Do you think that people should have to pay to have their political opinions heard?
Lets gather up a majority of all the rich people into one political party. Then lets make sure that the only way a political view can be heard is paying an extraordinary amount of money for a radio station/air time. Then lets have all the wealthy people buy up all the radio stations, and radio equiptment, and use capitalism to artifically jack up the cost of going on the air, so that way only the wealthy political party ever gets heard. Yeah, righto!
[…] The Democrats are up to no good again. Apparently, getting our borders secured isn’t as important as tampering with talk radio. Cam Edwards describes it as “The Nanny Doctrine”: Democrats have decided that Air America’s a failed experiment, liberal talk radio can’t compete on an even playing field with conservative talk radio… so conservative talk radio must be dismantled. […]
I know what you mean, Don. - Sorry - I mean Terry.
I try explaining the Constitution to people on the left. I keep saying you read it and obey it. They keep asking how can you obey it without interpreting it. I finally figured it out. I tell them you don’t interpret it, you read it and must comprehend it, then you obey it. Then they ask stuff like how do you know what “speech” means, and I tell them to look in the dictionary for the answer. That’s what you must do to comprehend it. You gotta know what words mean.
You may be up against something similar.
Woody
[…] But it’s a great day for those who value free speech and the value of an open and free market of ideas. I think Cam Edwards puts it best: Obviously I’m not a fan of the Fairness Doctrine. I think it was silly in the 1980’s, but it’s absolutely ridiculous in 2007. What would happen if the Fairness Doctrine was imposed again? […]
Yeay! It went down (for now) in stinking flames, where it belongs.
Pence’s bill passed overwhelmingly (makes me proud to be a Hoosier). So much for the Fairness Doctrine.
Why do we always have to divide into one of two categories? Cam said:
“In other words, Democrats have decided that Air America’s a failed experiment…”
Democrats? I think you mean *some* Democrat - Kerry and Kucinich (at least as part of this article. It’s tiring to always hear these massively broad categorizations that do nothing other than demonize an entire group.
After all, I don’t believe that all Republicans are devout Christians, or only rich white males, or come from a life of privilege, or belong to militias, or expect that it’s their right to own a Bradley tank (hiya, Woody!), or suffer from racism, or hate gay people, or any number of other things.
This demonization does nothing more than halting real, honest debate. It makes it easy to write off an entire issue when it comes from anyone in that party.
I don’t happen to agree with the Fairness Doctrine any more than I agree with efforts to apply the same things to the Internet. But perhaps there IS something valid in the discussion about the unbalanced power of talk radio. Perhaps we can discuss those issues without simply chalking it up as ‘pointless because it comes from Left’.
I know, I’m dreaming.
Now… to the actual content here.
I don’t think that anyone can argue that there’s not power in non-traditional communication. Even Trent Lott has said there is.
We have the Equal Time Rule that addresses how political (”commerce-based”) content is sold (in the form of commercials). And news organizations have rules (legal or ethical) for how they cover certain stories.
But there’s an incredible power shift in recent years/elections where the “gray areas” between these two. Talk radio and bloggers are two of the biggest areas of question/concern, since they seem to follow no existing rules (i.e. they’re not necessarily “commerce”, like buying a commercial, and they’re not “news”, guided by an existing ethical/legal code of conduct).
Whether we need to implement some amount of law to help require equal time in these gray areas or not, I’m not sure. On one hand, I do believe VERY strongly in the power of the “wisdom of crowds” inherent in the blogosphere. And on the other, I work in this space for a career and have seen how the blogosphere can be easily manipulated/directed by the person with the biggest checkbook.
I don’t think the Fairness Doctrine (as I understand it) is the way to go, but I believe that we MUST start an honest discussion about the changing power of sites like this one I’m leaving a comment on.
In 1871, cartoons in Harper’s Weekly played a massive role in having a corrupt NYC government voted out, including the infamous Boss Tweed. Cartoons. Fortunately this was a positive outcome, but why would we think that non-traditional communication would be any less effective in helping to promote things that aren’t positive?
Jake,
First of all, the Bradley is not a tank. It is classified as an “infantry fighting vehicle”. (Yeah, I know…minor detail.)
As for this comment: “But perhaps there IS something valid in the discussion about the unbalanced power of talk radio.”
Should we talk about the unbalanced power of the news media? The fairness doctrine would NOT apply to television news, whether it was one of the broadcast networks or a cable network. I recently made a comment to a liberal friend about the bias in the news media. His immediate comment was to agree with me “because of Fox News.” I countered with, “well, what about ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, CNN (etc.)?” He had no follow up comment except to make some remark that Hitler was the father of conservatism. (Can’t argue factually, argue with insults.)
The “unbalanced power” of talk radio can be balanced by the free market. If liberal radio had any merit, it would also have a large following, thus it could balance conservative talk radio. However, since liberal radio cannot draw the crowds, they want to “level the playing field” by crippling their opponents. Thus, the call for a “fairness doctrine”.
Ugh. Yes, you’re right, the Bradley is not what I was referencing. I meant the Abrams (that was the discussion Woody and I had some time ago).
Yes, I do believe there is bias on both side. No question. Every person alive has bias.
Before I say any more, let’s just skip right over the argument that Air America was pointless because their business implementation was poor. VHS won out over Betamax, and in your thinking, Betamax had no “merit”, despite the fact that Betamax was a technologically better format.
The brilliance of the free market is that everyone has (theoretically) equal chance of success. The VHS team could pull off a marketing coup and beat out the technology of the Betamax. Your logic dictates that there wasn’t a market for enery, thus the demise of Enron. I have no idea what the reality behind Air America’s struggles, but isn’t it just as likely is financial/corporate mismanagement as it is a lack of audience or a fundamental flaw in “liberal” radio?
The reality is that in politics, money rules the roost. Hopefully that’s a point we can agree on. I’d LOVE to be able to see my politicians run on a more even playing field, helping/requiring them to show me their true leadership skills more than their marketing/pandering skills. I don’t care which side we’re talking about, I’d like all of them to be equaled out. Honestly, I’d prefer more measures to simply reduce the amount of money in the system overall. This is a big part of why I think the Fairness Doctrine is focused in the wrong place.
I just wish both sides could stop the “My side is brilliant and never wrong, your side is a bunch of clueless fools”. It’s a big part of why I have a hard time declaring “party affiliation”…
I knew that, Jake. For myself, I would prefer an M5A3 “Stuart” tank. It is smaller, thus more suitable for “concealed carry”.
I have to say I was amused with your analogy of Air America and Betamax. Personally, I have listened to (albeit just a very small bit) Air America and have read a bit of Al Franken, and I just can’t bring myself to compare them to technical superiority. Their logic is faulty and Franken just isn’t funny to me.
Your comment: “Your logic dictates that there wasn’t a market for enery, thus the demise of Enron.”
That might be true if Enron were the ONLY energy company. They were only one of many companies dealing with natural gas. Then there was also the other energy markets. Enron’s failure didn’t cripple the energy companies.
We do agree that money tends to “run” politics. However, a good politician can somewhat overcome a money disadvantage in politics by having a good philosophy and plan for action if elected to office. In a sense, it is like Rush Limbaugh states, “he is equal time” because he (and other conservative talk show hosts) present the news that the biased news media doesn’t present.
Personally, I wish we had more of an electorate that could read past the first three paragraphs of a news story. They could thus learn there was more to the story than just the headline.
Leave my Abrams out of this!
As for the success of conservative talk radio, it’s all about the market and why MY business is successful, too. Someone left a void in the market(Conservative talk for the media, and quality drapes for my industry) and someone filled that void. If conservative TV ever evolves, you’ll see a drop in conservative talk radio. It’s the market; nothing more. Well, and maybe because this country is a lot more conservative than has been let on by the old media as well…
Woody
Woody, completely agree that it’s about the market. But it’s also about marketING. The market forces, as you’re well aware, are driving by more than any one factor.
Now, as to your point/belief that the country “is a lot more conservative than has been let on by the old media as well…”
Think through your own argument a second. If you believe that market forces are an absolute indicator of interest, and you believe that there’s radically more liberal media than conservative, doesn’t that therefore mean that the country is more liberal than conservative?
If a more liberal leaning press has the ability to influence beyond is market representation, doesn’t this negate the argument that the market represents?
Until recently(the last 10 or 15 years) the old MSM had a nearly total monoply. Market forcesd were not at work. They are now, though.
Woody
Also, keep in mind that the circulation numbers and advertising for newspapers keep trending downward, Fox News outpolls each of the other TV networks in ratings, and in a recent Gallup poll, the news media approval ratings fell just below the approval ratings of the President. (They did beat out Congress, though.)
Back to the liberal media; if they are NOT reporting positive news in Iraq (which they aren’t), if they are KNOWN to slant their news (which a recent poll indicated greater consumer knowledge of), wouldn’t that be a turnoff to those news consumers wishing to see and hear balanced news?
Again, with Fox News ratings being higher, I think that is evidence of a shift in consumer perspective. The public is becoming more discerning.