Conservatives are terrified that the Democrats will reimpose some form of the Fairness Doctrine, which would shut down right-wing talk radio. I’m pretty libertarian when it comes to free speech, although I have no problem regulating the use of public airwaves. I’m not sure what it would even mean to impose a Fairness Doctrine on the public airwaves in a world that has the internet, satellite radio, and cable television. It doesn’t strike me as having the same onerous effect on free speech that it had in the 1980’s. But I’d have to look deeper into this issue to really understand how a modern-day Fairness Doctrine might be implemented and how it would limit free-speech. I will say this, however. I think there should be a greater space for balanced debate, like you see on British television and throughout Europe. Could we insist that the public airwaves have balanced debate, while allowing for anything-goes in the rest of the media landscape? Would this force Right-Wing talk radio onto satellite radio? Would it have any impact at all on cable news? It depends on how you define public airwaves, I guess.
In other words, I think Rush Limbaugh should be able to spout off on the radio, but I’m not sure he should be able to do it on the publicly-owned spectrum. If that makes sense. Does it?
they continue to get the spectrum for free.
if they present one-sided talkers, they rent the spectrum.
Seems simple enough
somewhat related – ‘Fairness’ in Public Tender Bids
AP Investigation: Palin Pipeline Terms curbed Bids
The problem isn’t Rush spouting off, it’s that in many parts of rural America his spouting is all anyone can get on the broadcast (and thus free) radio.
Because of consolidation of cable, broadcast, satellite, and internet media into a few large corporations with vertical integration to local markets, there is no competition of ideas generally. Although thanks to net neutrality and MSNBC’s desperation for ratings, the situation has improved somewhat.
Therefore, anti-trust legislation preventing cross-technology integration, vertical integration,and local market monopolies seems to be a better approach than the old Fairness Doctrine.
I’m venturing into a topic about which I really don’t know shit, so I welcome the input of anyone who understands the issues.
But I remember the way that Jesse Helms used to play the fairness doctrine when is was the “opinion” guy on WRAL-TV in Raleigh.
He would make outrageous and inflammatory statements. Then they would have the fairness doctrine notification.
A day or so later an “opposing opinion” would make a 30-second presentation of the opposing opinion to what Helms had said. Then Helms would spend another 30 seconds or more making inflammatory statements about the opinion presented. It was a no-win situation for opposing opinions. And it shaped the perceptions of Helms’s audience of him and the issues and prepared the way for his defeating a “foreigner” Nick Galiafinakis in 1972.
Even someone as dumb as O’Reilly could play games with the fairness doctrine. But with competition in the media, O’Reilly and the other wingnut welfare queens would likely disappear from the airwaves altogether. For all of their free market, free exchange of ideas rhetoric, they can’t take opposing opinions; it kills their ability to control the message. And without control, people see what sort of human being they really are.
So now the Jesse Helmses of the day can go on the air, spout inflammatory crap, and NOT get answered. Which is better?
One thing to consider is the the difference in audiences for passive versus active media users. Although this is changing even now, the internet requires active participation for any information to transfer. The radio just needs someone to turn one on near you for the information to literally surround you.
To some extent yes, but there are also ways that the Internet can be used as a glorified table radio (tuning it to a live stream from an otherwise terrestrial station, for instance). Frankly I would like to see more Internet radio, because I think an Internet radio talk station could easily combine the best of both worlds. You would have the host moderating the discussion, perhaps with callers to the show, but also with a chat channel attached so viewers/listeners could interact with each other, and possibly the host and/or their producer, in real time.
There’s a lot of potential there if we could just figure out how to unleash it.
I’m old enough to remember how the Fairness Doctrine used to work. The local nightly news was just-the-facts with distinctly labeled commentary at the end. Sometimes a conservative spoke on one night and a liberal on the next night. Sometimes they were both on to give their POV, one after the other. Sometimes they got to have a face-to-face debate.
On the national level, there was Huntley & Brinkley. Huntley was the more conservative one and Brinkley was the more liberal one altho both were, by today’s standards, quite moderate. They reported straight news and then took turns at the end with 5 minute segments stating their opinions.
On all-talk radio, a Rush-type show was followed by a Randi Rhodes-type show. It all meant equal time for opposing positions in all media. Most newspapers still do this with left and right arguing across the editorial page.
None of this could work today because of blogs and cable tv. In the past, a news consumer only had 1 or 2 newspapers, 2 or 3 broadcast tv stations, 3 or 4 talk radio stations and, maybe, one radical leftist newspaper in town. The access to news was so limited that the Fairness Doctrine was necessary to insure an informed populace. Now, with the click of a remote or a mouse, a person can know as much or as little as they choose.
I agree to a point. However, I think most people still get their news from the big broadcasters like CBS, NBC, ABC, and sadly, Fox. I would argue that these broadcasters have an obligation to provide equal and fair coverage of the news and campaigns. If you want unbalanced news or partisan news, then sure, hit the web and the cable channels. But, I really miss the Fairness Doctrine and think that our understanding of issues and candidates has been sorely affected by the repeal of it.
What about cable TV then? That doesn’t involve public airwaves.
No! The signal is piped through a cable. In public broadcasting, the signal bounces around in the atmosphere.
In the early days of radio, so many stations popped up that they were smearing each other’s signal–like some stations still have a problem with when the atmosphere allows radio waves to travel a long distance.
In order to deal with this stations bought more and more powerful transmitters.
But this was ruining the market because the available frequencies were limited because of the technology at the time.
The solution was rationing of the frequencies for broadcast radio. Thus a license and in return the public expected that this licensed business acted in the public interest. The fairness doctrine became at the time a consensus opinion of how to carry out controversial discussions over the airwaves.
Rationing only extends to broadcast (and that now includes TV, cell phones, broadband wireless, wifi, and other frequencies that new technology has opened up) because there was a limited supply of frequencies within a particular locality.
Non-broadcast technologies, such as cable, do not have this same limitation.
It’s a totally different issue–preventing corporates from buying up EVERY station in a community, and operating them at a loss. It shouldn’t mean Rush Limbaugh has to alternate with Ed Schultz, but that any station that can’t prove it’s a true business (by IRS standards, over a series of years) would lose its licence.
As it is now, many of these AM stations are unregulated contributions to the Republican party.
Anything like the old Fairness Doctrine would be a waste of time, given other media, and serve as a needless lightning rod for the right to attack. It also almost certainly couldn’t pass constitutional muster these days
At best, I think a certain amount of time could be better clearly set aside for public service announcement. That time could be used to educate and/or debate issues of the day with time given to any range of viewpoints.
These viewpoints would be selected perhaps by peer review or something as unbiased as possible without letting on the true crackpots.
The central benefit would be that who gets on and what they say will not be ratings driven.
But you can’t make people watch.
Perhaps there would be a American Idol viewer voter component with cash prizes. 🙂
I never thought it was onerous to be fair.
You know, I’d be fine if a station that broadcast two hours of Rush Limbaugh five days a week were required to offer the same amount of air time to, say, Thom Hartmann or Rachel Maddow or Stephanie Miller. I ralize that the drive time audience is more profitable than, say, the 12-2 slot because more people are in their cars and listening, but at least it would be a start.
Breaking up monopolies so that there are choices for people watching broadcast TV or listening to broadcast radio would solve most of the problem. On the other hand, a new Fairness Doctrine that would apply only to broadcast might make sense, since on cable and the internet anything goes.
Let’s do both.
One major change in the way radio now works would directly affect and be affected by a return to the Fairness Doctrine. The radio stations themselves no longer produce the programs being broadcast. Most of the local radio stations carrying the programs are simply leasing the transmitters and the local spectrum to the producer of the programs. WXXX (now, that would be a great set of programs, no) , or whatever, just allow Rush-bo or whomever to send out the signal from whatever central location they work in. Therefore, Rush-bo Productions are buying TIME and will want the most cost effective time for which to sell advertising, because it is the program producer who is fitting the advertisers message into the broadcast, not the station. Make Rush-bo Productions give up a prime time slot and the local station begins to see real reductions in revenue. That complicates the return of the Fairness Doctrine immeasurable because we begin to enter property taking territory, a favorite con and libertarian stopping ground.
Boo,
What “onerous effects on free speech” did the Fairness Doctrine have, exactly? My recollection is that at most it had a somewhat dampening effect on the supremacy of cash in getting one’s message out on the public airwaves. Then the Supreme Court ruled that money=free speech. Maybe I’m oversimplifying, but that’s basically how I remember it.
a little honesty and accountability especially in the publicy owned spectrum, however it’s codified and enforced, would be a good thing.
l think d52boy has a very valid observation above, as do many of the others. like it or not, the majority of people in this country get there news from the tv and radio, and the vertical integration, and controlling ownerships…monopolies… by a handful of mega-corps has virtually destroyed any semblance of “fairness”. something[s] has[have] to be done to level the playing field once again.
saw this in the funnies this morning:
non sequitur
eh.