Doctrinal Unfairness
FCC commissioner in Boston says “stay tuned” for developments in the Fairness Doctrine debate. Local right-wing talk machine denounces the left’s interest in squelching what they call the one part of the media where the left doesn’t have a headlock. Boston Herald:
An FCC commissioner visiting the Hub this week didn’t rule out the possibility of a return of the Fairness Doctrine - a scourge on conservative talk jocks - under the Obama administration.
“There has been a lot of talk on Capitol Hill about bringing it back, maybe with a different name, but bringing the idea back,” Robert McDowell of the Federal Communications Commision told the Herald. “I would say stay tuned and see how the next year or two pan out.”
The doctrine required stations to present both sides of an issue. It was repealed in 1987.
Reimposing that FCC regulation, McDowell said, could inhibit radio or TV stations from airing controversial opinion shows altogether because “they would be fearful that the FCC might not renew their license if it was determined they were not complying with the so-called Fairness Doctrine.”
“This would basically be putting the commercial radio industry on the ropes even more than it already is,” said WRKO-AM (680) host Howie Carr, a Boston Herald columnist.
While Carr said he’s sure liberal Democrats would like to “stick it to talk radio” he’s hopeful that “calmer heads would prevail.”
WTKK-FM (96.9) host Jay Severin said he believes there’s a “very zealous desire on the part of the political left” to want to silence talk radio. “It’s the only part of the media they don’t greatly influence or virtually control,” Severin said.
But Tom Taylor, executive news editor at Radio-Info.com, said any kind of “serious, sustained efforts from the Democrats” to bring back the doctrine are very low on the agenda. “If you’re talk radio, you need issues that you can kick around and this is a great one,” Taylor said.
McDowell, nominated to the FCC by President Bush, said Barack Obama will designate a new FCC chairman and it’ll be up to the chair “to determine if she or he wants to go forward with this Fairness Doctrine.”
“At the same time,” McDowell said, “Congress could try to reintroduce it through legislation.”
McDowell said the doctrine was put in place in the 1940s because there were far fewer radio outlets then. “The concern was having the airwaves in the control of so few, and having so few voices out there, that you needed to require stations to present both sides of an issue,” McDowell said.
Stations stopped airing anything of a political nature and there was no political discourse. “They would have talk shows about apple pie recipes,” McDowell said, “but not about political issues of the day.”
We actually have lefty talk in this town, though the right dominates the genre here as elsewhere. But if they eliminate the talk, and broadcast news is dominated by lefty outlets that can present their preferred perspective without running afoul of the Fariness Doctrine, the question is increasingly how relevant airwaves will be when people can livestream and say whatever they like. For the moment. Some people are worried about that, too. Business & Media Institute.
Topics: Internet, media, moronocy
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:08 am on Saturday, November 15, 2008
4 Responses to “Doctrinal Unfairness”
Leave a Reply
Trackback URLYou must be logged in to post a comment.
November 15th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
Liberalism wouldn’t be the first religion to attempt to silence its critics. The question is, will we allow it?
November 15th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
Or we get smarter about how to make a point. As in the Obama opera linked here (you’ll need to scroll down)
http://cmandof.freeforums.org/current-discussion-off-topic-chatter-t19-280.html#p2060<br
h/t John McCormack of the Weekly Standard Blog
November 15th, 2008 at 2:53 pm
Guglielmo Priapo! Ha!
November 16th, 2008 at 5:54 pm
What’s the big deal? After presenting the conservative point of view, just say, ‘Aborting unborn life is essential to womanhood, losing war is the right thing to do, tax hikes are wonderful for the economy and we should let the criminals go free!’ There’s your fairness and balance. Might even help conservatives if we start preaching liberalism right away.