Why ‘Fairness’ Fails

Anyone who has ever sampled the auditory sewer that is right-wing talk radio can understand the impulse to reinstate the so-called “fairness doctrine,” which, for 38 years, gave the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) the power to regulate broadcast speech, under the guise of balancing public debate. That is just what an improbable coalition of congressional lefties and right wingers is again threatening to do.

It would indeed be satisfying to symbolically rip the tonsils out of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, and Bill O’Reilly, the slime masters who dominate national syndication. And it would be equally satisfying to neuter the host of second-rate imitators who plague local radio. But that would be silly and wrong-headed. Here’s why.

Born in 1949, the fairness doctrine was the child of a primitive day, when radio bandwidth was limited and television was still developing. Cable TV, satellite radio, and the Internet — and all that it has spawned: e-mail, search engines, blogs, podcasts, YouTube — were beyond conception. Better known as the equal-time provision, the fairness doctrine called for “ample play for the free and fair competition of opposing views.” That sounds reasonable enough, but in both theory and in practice, the fairness doctrine was a bad idea.

Under its guise, political appointees had the right to act as policemen of sorts, regulating broadcasters in a way that would be unthinkable for newspapers and magazines. The government was called upon to regulate political discussion; that discussion might ultimately affect government action. There was a circularity to this that was so contradictory as to be ridiculous.

Thankfully, the doctrine died in 1987, when the Regan-era FCC rightly concluded that cable and other communication innovations would revolutionize how we generate and consume entertainment and information. Since then, at least three congressional attempts to revive the doctrine have failed. We hope this one, spurned by the failure of the compromise-laden immigration-reform bill, will as well.

While certainly far from perfect, that bill was a rare instance of right-left cooperation, led by Democratic senator Edward Kennedy, of Massachusetts, and Republican senator and presidential candidate John McCain, of Arizona. And yet the talk-show venom directed at the immigration bill by Limbaugh and company was so toxic that it prompted their fellow reptile, Mississippi Republican senator Trent Lott, to wonder if “talk radio is running America.”

Massachusetts senator John Kerry, who himself suffered outrageous and unfair treatment at the hands of the talk masters during his presidential campaign, favors reinstating equal-time protections. But while he has our sympathy, Kerry, on this issue, is still wrong.

There are a staggering 14,000 radio stations now broadcasting throughout the nation. Talk radio, approximately 90 percent of which has a conservative bent, accounts for not quite four percent of that audience. Limbaugh may command approximately 13 million listeners, but the more-balanced-yet-still-left-sympathetic National Public Radio (NPR) weighs in at 20 million. This analogy isn’t perfect, but it suggests that diversity of opinion in media is not an endangered species.

Moreover, media audiences are not monolithic. There are plenty of lefties and moderates with a taste for the bizarre who tune into Limbaugh to get some kicks from the dark side; and there are scores of hemorrhoid-addled geezers who get their rocks off by ranting to themselves as they tune into NPR while driving to their NRA meeting.

This is not a Whitmanesque ode to diversity. But there is also no shortage of debate and no deficit of conflicting opinions in the current media landscape. Cable, satellite, and the Internet have not only spawned it, they guarantee it. And as powerful as talk radio is, radio itself is a much smaller and less significant piece of the media constellation today than it was in 1949.

The fairness doctrine is an old idea for a time now past. And despite the good intentions that prompted it, it was never a very good idea, anyway. It is best left dead and buried.

Congress should more fruitfully spend its time coming to grips with the massive concentration of communication power in an ever-shrinking bucket. Private companies pay a pittance to use public airwaves. What price are they really worth? The president and Congress are unwilling to dissolve or downsize media giants; perhaps they will be willing to require a better price for the airwaves if coupled with creative requirements for community broadcasting.

The public has benefited from communication revolution in a broad way. But monopoly ownership has lead to a one-size-fits-all conception of broadcasting that ill serves the grassroots. It’s time to think about broadcast audiences as communities to be served, not audiences to be exploited. That — not the fairness doctrine — is the real issue.

Popularity: 1% [?]

According to Pew Research, 22% of Americans cite talk radio as their main source of news and information. So it’s easy to see why they have been talking anti-Fairness Doctrine for more than a year, long before anyone on the left even brought it up.
The Fairness Doctrine may not be the right thing, but what we have now is certainly wrong for our democracy.

I dunno, but I would like to hear more points of view expressed in the media.
This would help me form better opinions regarding the issues of the day. IMNSHO, in a democracy, the people MUST be well informed in order to make decisions in such things as elections, and other political and sociological issues.

Face it, no media outlet is going to allow someone to voice an opinion that goes grossly against the opinion of the management of said outlet. Heck, I couldn’t go on Fox News and say what I feel of Rupert Murdock’s propaganda machine. Therefore, in order for the voices of those least heard, to be heard, the Fairness Doctrine MUST be reinstated.

I do not feel that it will shut up pundits of any flavor, but it will allow other voices to be heard in outlets, and markets that were previously unavailable to them. The Media Ownership Reform Act, being sponsored by Congressman Maurice Hinchey, does this and more. The Media Ownership Reform Act seeks to restore integrity and diversity to America’s media system by lowering the number of media outlets that one company is permitted to own in a single market. The bill also reinstates the Fairness Doctrine to protect fairness and accuracy in journalism.

Our airwaves are a precious and limited commodity that belong to the general public. As such, they are regulated by the government. From 1949 to 1987, a keystone of this regulation was the Fairness Doctrine, an assurance that the American audience would be guaranteed sufficiently robust debate on controversial and pressing issues. Despite numerous instances of support from the U.S. Supreme Court, President Reagan’s FCC eliminated the Fairness Doctrine in 1987, and a subsequent bill passed by Congress to place the doctrine into federal law was then vetoed by Reagan.

MORA would amend the 1934 Communications Act to restore the Fairness Doctrine and explicitly require broadcast licensees to provide a reasonable opportunity for the discussion of conflicting views on issues of public importance.

I believe that BOTH sides are undermining this effort that can only help our democracy, and keep people more informed, as well as create more jobs in the area of media.

You can see a summary of Hinchey’s bill here: http://www.house.gov/hinchey/issues/mora.shtml

I see Dr Weed hasn’t read the article. He is spending his ill-informed time complaining that the writer of this article wants to bring back the Fairness Doctrine when the exact opposite is true. I have to agree with The Phoenix that the Fairness Doctrine is NOT something worth bringing back. The true problem is OWNERSHIP. You see, ownership has its priviledges. Owners have the right to showcase who they want on their stations. The consolidation of the media market is what’s hurting thoughtful and informative dialogue. There are entertaining hosts on both the left and the right, but what hosts (whether they’re talented or not) get the opportunity to be showcased in the media explicitly depends on who owns the particular market.
Dr. Weed, please read the article. You may actually agree with what the writer is saying. Calling people names just doesn’t work when you’re using your brain.