Did the Fairness Doctrine Ever Work?

Why do some support government intervention?

1. Does the “scarce” amount of spectrum space require oversight by federal regulators? Based on historical evidence although the spectrum is limited, the number of broadcasters in America has continuously increased.

2. Is “Fairness” or “Fair Access” best determined by federal regulators? Or is it correct that the FCC bureaucrats cannot determine what is “fair” or enforce it? In a recent discussion FCC Commissioner Michael Copps took broadcasters to task for their current programming content, speaking of “too little news, too much baloney passed off as news. Too little quality entertainment, too many people eating bugs on reality TV, too little local and regional music, and too much brain-numbing national play lists.” Mr. Copps believes he is in a position to determine what people in this country should listen to on the radio or view on television. He would obviously be promoting his own opinion, and would consider his actions “fair.”

3. Will the Fairness Doctrine guarantee that more opinions will be aired? In the past seventy years arbitrary enforcement of the Doctrine has been shown to diminish, not encourage, vigorous debate.

There are numerous writings pointing to individual instances where the Fairness Doctrine inhibited the freedom of speech. One of those cases was remembered by Nat Hentoff, a journalist with the Village Voice in New York. He has been writing his column, “Liberty Beat,” since 1957, and in 2001 he received a lifetime achievement award from the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. He is considered by his peers to be one of the finest journalists of his generation. He considered the Fairness Doctrine as exemplifying what George Orwell called “Newspeak”:# it uses language to mask the harmful effects of its supposed meaning.

His personal experience with the Doctrine occurred in the 1940’s when he was working at WMEX radio station in Boston. He explained how they covered politics and politicians, and offered their political opinions on the air. Then the Fairness Doctrine letters started coming in from the FCC and the station’s front office panicked. Lawyers were called, tapes of shows were reviewed, and responses had to be sent to the FCC. After a few of these letters the radio station’s boss announced that there would be no more controversial stories of any sort on WMEX. They had been “muzzled.”

In 1969 the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Fairness Doctrine in the Red Lion decision. During arguments before the Court, broadcasters stated that the Doctrine had a chilling effect on their business practices, leading many of them to abandon their coverage of controversial issues in favor of “safe” issues.

In 1985 the FCC issued a report concluding the Doctrine no longer served the public interest and instead chilled First Amendment speech. Note this is the FCC making this statement. The Commission predicted that without the chilling effect of the Fairness Doctrine it was reasonable to expect an increase in the coverage of controversial issues of public importance.

In 1987 the FCC formally renounced the Fairness Doctrine, and the FCC has stated that since then there has been more, rather than less, coverage of controversial issues. The amount of opinion-oriented programming exploded over the following six years and the number of radio talk shows jumped from 400 to more than 900. Many observers attribute this growth directly to the absence of the inhibiting effect of the Fairness Doctrine. Even Louise Slaughter agreed that AM radio popularity rose at that time. “It wasn’t even gradual…almost immediately.”

Even after the decades of proof of the inhibiting of ideas due to the Fairness Doctrine there are still those that want it back. In their 2005 book, Off Center: The Republican Revolution and the Erosion of American Democracy, Hacker and Pierson wrote: “…the proliferation of new media…has fostered a strongly right-wing journalistic presence in talk radio and on cable. The FCC…surely can justify restoring the simple requirement that the news include a fair representation of views…”