CE Week #15: “Fairness Doctrine Fouls Out”
December 07, 2008
By George Will
WASHINGTON — Reactionary liberalism, the ideology of many Democrats, holds that inconvenient rights, such as secret ballots in unionization elections, should be repealed; that existing failures, such as GM, should be preserved; and, with special perversity, that repealed mistakes, such as the “fairness doctrine,” should be repeated. That Orwellian name was designed to disguise the doctrine’s use as the government’s instrument for preventing fair competition in the broadcasting of political commentary.
Because liberals have been even less successful in competing with conservatives on talk radio than Detroit has been in competing with its rivals, liberals are seeking intellectual protectionism in the form of regulations that suppress ideological rivals. If liberals advertise their illiberalism by reimposing the fairness doctrine, the Supreme Court might revisit its 1969 ruling that the fairness doctrine is constitutional. The court probably would dismay reactionary liberals by reversing that decision on the ground that the world has changed vastly, pertinently and for the better.
Until the Reagan administration extinguished it, the doctrine required broadcasters to devote reasonable time to fairly presenting all sides of any controversial issue discussed on the air. The government decided the meaning of the italicized words.
When government regulation of the content of broadcasts began in 1927, the supposed justification was the scarcity of radio spectrum. In 1928 and 1929, when Republicans ran Washington, a New York station owned by the Socialist Party was warned to show “due regard” for others’ opinions, and the government blocked the Chicago Federation of Labor’s attempted purchase of a station because all stations should serve “the general public.” In 1939, when Democrats ran Washington, the government conditioned renewal of one station’s license on that station’s promise to desist from anti-FDR editorials.
In 1969, when the Supreme Court declared the fairness doctrine constitutional, it probably did not know the Kennedy administration’s use of it, as one official described it: “Our massive strategy was to use the fairness doctrine to challenge and harass the right-wing broadcasters and hope that the challenges would be so costly to them that they would be inhibited and decide it was too expensive to continue.” Richard Nixon emulated this practice. In 1973, Supreme Court Justice William Douglas, a liberal, said the doctrine “has no place in our First Amendment regime” because it “enables administration after administration to toy with TV or radio.”
The court’s 1969 ruling relied heavily on the scarcity rationale. But Brian Anderson and Adam Thierer, in their book “A Manifesto for Media Freedom,” note that today there are about 14,000 radio stations, twice as many as in 1969, and 18.9 million subscribers to satellite radio, up 17 percent in 12 months, and 86 percent of households with either cable or satellite television receive an average of 102 of the 500 available channels. Because daily newspapers are much more scarce than are radio and television choices, should there be a fairness doctrine for The New York Times?
The 1969 court dismissed as “speculative” the possibility that the fairness doctrine would cause broadcasters to “eliminate coverage of controversial issues.” But the proper worry was that the doctrine would continue to stifle the flowering of controversy. A court that considers the doctrine today will note that whereas in 1980 there were fewer than 100 talk radio programs, today there are more than 1,500 news or talk radio stations.
Further subverting the “scarcity” rationale for government supervision of broadcast content, some liberals now say: The problem is not maldistribution of opinion and information, but too much of both. Until recently, liberals fretted that the media were homogenizing America into blandness. Now they say speech management by government is needed because of a different scarcity — the public’s attention, which supposedly is overloaded by today’s information cornucopia.
And these worrywarts say the proliferation of radio, cable, satellite broadcasting and Internet choices allows people to choose their own universe of commentary, which takes us far from the good old days when everyone had the communitarian delight of gathering around the cozy campfire of the NBC-ABC-CBS oligopoly. Being a liberal is exhausting when you must simultaneously argue for illiberal policies on the basis of dangerous scarcity and menacing abundance.
If reactionary liberals, unsatisfied with dominating the mainstream media, academia and Hollywood, were competitive on talk radio, they would be uninterested in reviving the fairness doctrine. Having so sullied liberalism’s name that they have taken to calling themselves progressives, liberals are now ruining the reputation of reactionaries, which really is unfair.
This article makes the liberals sound like babies discontent with the toy that they have and so they scream for more. In America, or primarily in the mainstream media, the democratic liberal dominates with much a media biased. However, as this article points out, they don’t hold the same stance in the radio talk stations and want to get their issues heard. I’m quite surprised that the courts ruled the “fairness doctrine” as constitutional. I’m a large believer in the rights that our founding fathers left us, especially our first amendment. If the media is more biased toward the liberals then why can’t radio talk stations be more biased toward the conservatives? I understand that they are fighting for more an equal opportunity, but the majority of people who listen to those talk shows are probably conservatives anyways. The great thing about narrowcasting is we, Americans, can watch what we prefer and listen to what we want to. If we challenge talk radio stations to change their material shouldn’t we change CMT (country music television) to start playing some rap on it to be “fair” to viewers who prefer a different music genre? No, just like the article said, if the liberals were dominating the radio like conservatives then they would have no problem with how things were running.
Connection: This article connects to the “media bias” where a certain part of the “mass media” such as, television, raido, newspapers, etc., have a certain bias to what they show and what they do not show. In this case in the television there are more things show in favor of liberals and the opposite for radio talk shows and conservatives.
When I saw the words “Fairness Doctrine Fouls Out,” I could sense there was going to be trouble. For a short while I couldn’t remember exactly what the Fairness Doctrine was, so thankfully the article did a sufficient job of re-explaining it. In my opinion, this article is rather similar to another article from Week #14: “In basic civics, Americans get ‘F’”. They are alike in the sense that each one discusses a common problem that we as American viewers face nearly every day – information overload. According to this author, “the problem is not maldistribution of opinion and information, but too much of both” (George Will). It was interesting to learn that the Fairness Doctrine was “extinguished” because of the Reagan Administration. It seems like nowadays there is simply not enough room to argue for/against this idea of equality, even though “… liberals are seeking intellectual protectionism in the form of regulations that suppress ideological rivals” (George Will). It was hard to tell for a while whether the author considers himself a Democrat or Republican, but his last sentence gave me a great clue: “liberals are now ruining the reputation of reactionaries, which really is unfair” (George Will). So technically, this article has much bias, but then again so does most news reporting (especially if the intended audience is mostly liberals or mostly conservatives, such as CNN or FOX).
Connection: First Amendment (freedom of speech) leading to gridlock (in the sense of media, not government). Because all of these reporters believe that they deserve more time in the public spotlight, the result is confusion and, ultimately, we end up at a crossroad. It’s not that absolutely nothing is getting done; it’s just that nothing truly productive is coming out of this debate. Until the media stations can come to a general agreement (such as a Fairness Doctrine), Republicans and Democrats alike will continue to compete for dominant air time, whether it be on the radio, on television, or in the newspapers.
Liberals…liberals…liberals. A liberal Democrat was just elected for the Presidency and you now rule the House and the Senate and yet you think life is unfair. Well I’m so sorry you just got everything you wanted. Calling the Fairness Doctrine on the liberals’ part isn’t the brightest idea seeing that their candidate won. This also brings up the point that just because a party doesn’t get enough attention in one arena of the media doesn’t mean they aren’t overrepresented in a different arena. Liberals dominate the television. Conservatives generally have an edge over the liberals on air. I guess it comes down to what is watched or listened to more. Radio talk shows have now reached 1,500 and television channels have now reached 500. These are some insane numbers since five of each channel or station is probably watched.
If the liberals lose in 2012, maybe they’ll have something to cry about. But even then, they may be giving a present to the conservatives.
Connection: This links to mass media being the television, radio, newspapers, magazine, and the internet. Today most of the media tends to have a liberal bias just as we saw during the 2008 election. The spotlight was on Obama, in a positive light, not much on McCain, and a lot of criticisms of Sarah Palin. Obama was able to use the media to promote his campaign with a television show, commercials and even putting himself in video games.
In response to Johanna,
You make a good point that each party has its preferred method of getting its messages out. However, it’s not entirely accurate to claim that liberals shouldn’t be calling for a fairness doctrine because they were just elected to the presidency. It’s also not entirely accurate that the liberals will “rule the house and senate”. Although the numbers for the house are still a bit fuzzy and difficult to find, the Senate is divided 56 liberals and 44 conservatives. Plus, it has been happily declared that liberals will not be able to out-vote the conservatives for filibusters. There won’t be as much dominance as many people feared, and perhaps the liberals will have to call the fairness doctrine after all, somewhere down the line, to try and ensure that they hold their seats after 2012.
I don’t see why the Democrats are calling “foul” for the past at least two years have been nothing but complaining about how bad the Presidency is but since the presidential the Democrats have been nothing but good press from everyone. And even if right now the Democrats were getting bad publicity it wouldn’t matter because they have the Presidency and majorities in both houses of Senate. With this they can get just about anything they want and they are complaining about publicity.
As far as media goes the left dominates all mediums except the radio waves and Fox news. The left has the major news stations going for them and the internet which is probably accessed more than the tv or newspaper combined. Newspapers are another medium in which Democrats are getting good publicity. I don’t see why they are trying to throw the flag. So they get scrutinized once in while, doesn’t everyone? If you want the so called “fairness” from the fairness doctrine you can not complain every time someone “doesn’t play by the rules.” Also most people don’t like to be “fair” because life isn’t fair. The first amendment lets people say whatever they want through any medium they choose. Some might not like that but that is life.
Connection: Media is always going to be biased because everyone wants to share their opinions so you can choose what you hear and ignore. If you are conservative turn on the radio and if you are liberal pick and choose your tv station or news website.
It sounds like to me that it is about time that the fairness doctrine is taken out of the picture. The court’s ruling in 1969 relied heavily on the small amount of programs that were out and being used at the time. The small amount of programs resulted in them being one sided and unfair. Since today there are about 14,000 radio stations, twice as many as in 1969, and 18.9 million subscribers to satellite radio, up 17 percent in 12 months, and 86 percent of households with either cable or satellite television receive an average of 102 of the 500 available channels, there seems to be a major difference in the amount of programs; therefore, resulting in a wider range of both side of the story rather that just one side. There are enough programs to have one for each side. On one specific channel it may not be fair, but overall there are enough stations to make it fair. The fairness doctrine has not use in the modern era. It was based on old times and things have changes significantly. Liberals may have little success in competing with conservatives on talk radio, but they do have success in competing in talk shows on TV so I think that it is fair if you look at the big picture.
Connection: The mass media is the key to getting the word out in politics, such as the ‘electronic throne’ of the president. There is equal representation of the liberals and conservatives on the mass media, especially on the TV. Although the conservatives do have to liberals beat on talk radio.