What is the Fairness Doctrine?

Even though President Obama declared in his campaign speeches and after his election that he would never condone a re-instatement of a 'Fairness Doctrine' he, along with his minions, are starting to talk about it seriously. The President and other Democrats feel that if they can stifle the speech of talk radio and other conservative thinkers the Tea Partiers will go away and everyone in the country will go along with Obama's ideas on how to remake the United States into a nation of socialist ideals. I thought it would be a good idea to start a series about just how 'Fair' the Fairness Doctrine was and why we should all be very concerned as the President and Congress attempt to trample on one of our most precious rights - Freedom of Speech.

Part One - What is the Fairness Doctrine?

For the nearly 20 years she has been in Congress, Louise Slaughter (D-NY) has fought for “fairness” on the airwaves. Her latest legislation on the topic is HR 4710, “The Media Act,” which would reinstate the Fairness Doctrine. Here is a brief excerpt from an interview that she gave to the program NOW with Bill Moyers:

BILL MOYERS: So when the fairness doctrine went down in 1986, that was the first year you came to Congress, what was the consequence of it? What happened as a result?

LOUISE SLAUGHTER: AM radio rose. It wasn't even gradual, Bill. I mean, almost immediately. And I should point out to you that when we tried to reinstate [the fairness doctrine] again in '93, one of the reasons we couldn't was that Rush Limbaugh had organized this massive uprising against it, calling it "The Hush Rush Law." Which again said that while Rush can speak and anybody that he wants to can speak on those stations, the rest of us can't. But he aroused his listeners so that they contacted their members of Congress and killed the bill, and that's not the first time we've seen that.

BILL MOYERS: And you're saying that kind of discourse is dominating America right now.

LOUISE SLAUGHTER: Dominating America and a waste of good broadcast time and a waste of our airwaves.

BILL MOYERS: Not to the people who agree with him.

LOUISE SLAUGHTER: Well, they don't hear anything else. Why would they disagree with him?

BILL MOYERS: But today, you don't have to just listen to one radio. You've got a choice of radio stations. You've got the internet. You've got the magazines. You've got how many? Five hundred channels, they say?

LOUISE SLAUGHTER: Yes. But we don't have all those people lining up to discuss what's going on, what's happening in our country. Frankly, I want every American, every single one, to understand what's happened here.

BILL MOYERS: You're saying that your fairness doctrine would simply mean that if a radio station or television station offers one position, like Rush Limbaugh, on a bill or a campaign of President or an election, they should also have people who disagree with Rush Limbaugh?

LOUISE SLAUGHTER: Absolutely. They should not be putting their own bias and their own feelings out on their radio station because they think they own it. It has to be done as a public trust and in the public interest.

BILL MOYERS: Who decides what fairness is? What is fair? What's the truth?

LOUISE SLAUGHTER: Well, in political circles, it's the equal time piece where if one candidate gets to say something on the air, equal time, no matter what it is, is given to the opponent, again if asked. But fairness can't be that difficult. Surely, we have evolved to the stage here in this century that we can understand some sort of balance, some sort of sense. To me it is a feeling that my country is spilling out hatred and lies on many, many of these stations to people who hear nothing but that, who never believe or hear any countervailing opinion. I think this is one of the most dangerous things in the world, and it actually cuts out a point of view of half of America. And anything that we own as Americans, as a government, like the radio and television waves, should not be used in that way.

An Overview:

In 1934 the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was created as a government agency in charge of regulating the airwaves, and administering the “public interest” standard. In other words, interests of the public should have priority over interests of the broadcasters. This was important to its advocates to further democracy, minimize advertising abuses, and encourage diverse programming and airing of controversial views - making broadcasters accountable to the “public”. The policy of the FCC that became known as the Fairness Doctrine was an attempt to ensure that all coverage of controversial issues by a broadcast station be balanced and fair, allowing opposing viewpoints to be aired along with editorial opinions. The personal attack rule, an application of the Fairness Doctrine, required stations to notify persons when personal attacks were made on them in discussions of controversial public issues. In the 1980’s the industry was de-regulated, the Fairness Doctrine was dissolved, giving way to what was called “the marketplace model.”

The Fairness Doctrine has been both defended and opposed on First Amendment grounds. Backers of the doctrine claim that listeners have the right to hear all sides of controversial issues. They believe that broadcasters will resort to partisan coverage if allowed to broadcast without government intervention. Opponents of the Fairness Doctrine say that the doctrine lessens, rather than increases, diversity of views, due to the fact that only safe issues would be broadcast. Also, the additional expense incurred by the broadcasters in allowing for “balanced viewpoints” that are not subsidized by advertising dollars have in the past, and might again, completely rid the airwaves of controversial issues, to the detriment of the public.

Looming in the background is the question of who would determine what was fair. In his research paper, The Fairness Doctrine: A Solution in Search of a Problem, Adrian Cronauer wrote, “Fairness, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.” Depending on ones political viewpoints some might consider National Public Radio a moderate broadcaster, while others would find them to be more “left of center” in their choice of material. The opposite might be considered true in the case of FOX news.

The specter of the Fairness Doctrine keeps coming back to haunt those who support First Amendment rights. This series of blogs will attempt to prove that the Fairness Doctrine is set up to defeat its own purposes. First, as soon as a broadcaster arouses public passion by covering a controversial issue he will receive an avalanche of complaints, all wanting equal time to refute what they believed were unfair one-sided ideas being broadcast over the public airwaves. The costs in time, energy and legal fees have in the past caused the broadcasters to stay away from controversial issues, and property rights and a free market economy were being sacrificed because of government intervention in the form of the Fairness Doctrine.

Second, the Doctrine’s supporters seem not to appreciate just how much the broadcast world has changed since the early days of radio and television. With the proliferation of informational resources and technology, the number of broadcast outlets available to the public has increased steadily. In such an environment, it is hard to understand why the federal government must police the airwaves to ensure that differing views are heard.

The result of a reinstituted Fairness Doctrine would not be “fair” at all.