FCC Fairness Doctrine
enforcer in the
Bad Old Days

When today's Fourth of July festivities conclude and tomorrow's business day begins, our nation's Representatives and Senators will return to their many duties, among them posturing about a twenty years deceased policy known as the Fairness Doctrine.

I'm sure that I'm not the only blogger toggling between barbecue duty and their computer today, flipping burgers and grabbing RSS feeds on what the trade press has to say about the "Broadcaster Freedom Act," a bill soon to be introduced into the House and Senate that will Kill the Fairness Doctrine Dead Yet Again.

The proposed law has over 100 sponsors, among them Arizona Republican United States Senator and presidential contender John McCain.

Why on earth has this become an issue? And why now? Because the Republicans are as scared as an Arkansas hog on the way to the sausage factory, that's why.

But first let us recap the last week's festivities regarding this always frisky subject.

Not moments after the Republican far right triumphed over President Bush's hated immigration reform law than Representative Mike Pence, Republican of Indiana, introduced a rider to a budgetary bill in the House that would forbid funding for the Federal Communications Commission to enforce the Fairness Doctrine.

It overwhelmingly passed the House on Thursday June 26th. Even lots of Democrats voted for it.

The FCC no longer enforces this policy, it should be recalled. The Commission did uphold it from 1949 through 1987. Back then the FCC "required broadcasters to present opposing viewpoints on issues of public importance," as John McCain accurately summarizes the practice in his June 29th press release.

In 1969 the United States Supreme Court declared the policy constitutional after the FCC ordered a conservative radio station that had attacked a liberal journalist to give the reporter a chance to respond over the frequency's airwaves.

During the Reagan administration years, however, the FCC began to pull back from the rule, issuing a "Fairness Doctrine Report" in 1985 that suggested that the policy inhibits rather than encourages controversial dialog over the air waves.

Two years later an appeals court ruled that since Congress had never passed legislation authorizing the Fairness Doctrine, the FCC did not have to enforce it. In response, the House and Senate passed a Fairness Law, but the Senate could not override President Reagan's veto. The FCC then abandoned the practice.

But apparently the extinction of this policy for a fifth of a century has not satisfied its detractors. The "Broadcaster Freedom Act" would go beyond Pence's largely symbolic one year budget rider. It would just by plain old Act of Congress prevent the FCC from enforcing the concept, once and for all.

Why now? The Congressional Quarterly reports that Oklahoma Republican Senator and noted global warming denialist James Inhofe says that he overheard California Senator Barbara Boxer and New York's Hillary Clinton plotting something against talk radio in a Capitol Hill elevator. Various statements sympathetic to the Fairness Doctrine made by John Kerry and Diane Feinstein have been paraded out for all to see and dread.

Since then, the blogo-punditocracy has gone completely beer nuts over this issue, comparing Democrats to Kremlin propaganda bureaucrats—lots of that sort of thing.

One of my favorite screamers, Joseph Farah, warns that if the Fairness Doctrine is restored, Al-qaeda might be able to demand equal time over the airwaves.

Sorry to be a drama poop Joseph, but they'd never get it, because back when the Fairness Doctrine was law, the FCC only sporadically enforced the policy, and never for international criminal organizations.

Right wing Web sites have been tossing around Accuracy in Media Cliff Kincaid's analysis quite a bit. He says those sneaky Dems are just watching and waiting, biding their time regarding the Fairness Doctrine, plotting to retake the White House. And then . . . gotcha!

"The bottom line is that, without a massive public outpouring in favor of the First Amendment, comparable to the opposition to the immigration bill, the Broadcaster Freedom Act will die," Kincaid warns. "And that means that with a Democrat in the White House, the Fairness Doctrine, as well as limits on conservative ownership of media properties, will be passed into law."

For the sake of charity and calm, let's all agree for the moment that such a result would be Truly Horrible. But the question is whether there is really that much support for the revival of the Fairness Doctrine among those Marxist/Al-qaeda loving Democrats.

A smart study recently issued by the good folks over at The Center for American Progress and Free Press suggests otherwise. Their June 21st paper, "The Structural Imbalance of Talk Radio," ponders why talk radio is dominated by conservatives.

The paper attributes this tendency to three factors: "the complete breakdown of the public trustee concept of broadcast, the elimination of clear public interest requirements for broadcasting, and the relaxation of ownership rules including the requirement of local participation in management."

As for the Fairness Doctrine?

"[T]he Fairness Doctrine was never, by itself, an effective tool to ensure the fair discussion of important issues," they argue. . . .

"Simply reinstating the Fairness Doctrine will do little to address the gap between conservative and progressive talk unless the underlying elements of the public trustee doctrine are enforced, in particular, the requirements of local accountability and the reasonable airing of important matters. The key principle here is not shutting down one perspective or another—it is making sure that communities are informed about a range of local and national public affairs."

Speaking personally, I know a host of alternative media types, from Nat Hentoff on down, who were never big fans of the Fairness Doctrine. It's hard to see how, if the Democrats take the White House in 2008, they'll be able to muster up the support for this policy, controversial as it is even among many liberal media folks.

But it is not hard to see why the Republicans are drumming this issue into the ground at the moment. Just read the latest headlines:

• A new poll indicates that young people support universal health care, an open policy on immigration, and gay marriage. As for the presidential candidates, not only do a majority support either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, they're the only two candidates with which the polled young adults were really familiar.
• Republicans are badly trailing the Democrats on campaign fund raising. McCain in particular is running out of cash.

In this context, it's safe to say that this week's Fairness Doctrine panic is less about the issue, and more about "getting back in touch with the base," as they say, particularly for McCain.

That strategy may be working—for now.

"I know most of my fellow conservative bloggers hate McCain," writes "born again redneck yogi" blogger Patrick Jourbert Conlon, "but anyone with 22 pets and who's against the 'Fairness Doctrine' can't be all that bad."

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The Fairness Doctrine in the U$ is like Proportional Representation in the UK: it’s only supported by those (such as the Lib-Dems) who know that they’ll never be in a position to have it enforced *against* them.

John Whiting

www.whitings-writings.com