Fairness Doctrine...WTH!

[SSTONER]

I was courious has to how many of heard of the "Fairness Doctrine". Appraently this was adopted by the FCC requiring broadcasters to present both sides of a controversial issue - this was between 1949 and 1987 when it was dropped.

Now the Dems want to codify the doctrine in to law. Many conservative talk shows are not happy about this as staions could face heavy fines if they (the stations,not the actual talk show as I understand it)aired controversial stories and did not provide equal air time to both sides.

This was brought up by Rep. Dennis Kucinich(D-Ohio).

[scfire86]

Sounds like a good idea. Conservative talk show hosts are angry because they'll be exposed as being hypocrites and liars.

Couldn't happen to a nicer group.

[lvwrench]

SEE, the Fairness Doctrine is alive and well right here on these forums.

[fireturtle373]

Ain't that the truth

[doughesson]

Sounds like a good idea. Conservative talk show hosts are angry because they'll be exposed as being hypocrites and liars.

Couldn't happen to a nicer group.

How's that again?
The number of liberal news networks far outweigh the number of conservative news stations.Against NBC,ABC,CBS,CNN,MSNBC and the failed Air America,we have Fox News.One who cable news network.
Yeah,they must be doing a lot of damage to the liberal view if we need the Fairness Doctrine to level the field against all that.
I see how it's going to be made to work:Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity will have to devote half their air time to providing a forum to an opposing view(What about Alan Colmes?) but Katie Couric won't have to give half her show to a conservative rebutal.

You're obviously not afraid to speak your mind.Could it be that no one in the government is going to restrict what you say,no matter what Randy Rhodes says?

[mohican]

The "fairness doctrine" is an abridgment of the 1st amendment. it's good that it's gone.

I didn't see CBS run any counterpoint during the segment where they aired the false ng documents. and during the years of the "fairness doctrine" beinng in place, counterpoints were extremely limited, or edited out. just say no to this.

[DeputyMarshal]

The "fairness doctrine" is an abridgment of the 1st amendment.

How do you figure that?

[randsc]

How do you figure that?

I could certainly see how the Fairness Doctrine, if not itself necessarily violatove of the First Amendment, could LEAD to violations of the First Amendment.

Remember it would not all be about talk radio. Which government agency would you place in charge of determining if CBS or CNN swung too far left? Who would be in charge of censoring the Weather Channel if they started (sorry, CONTINUED) casually ascribing every weather event to global warming?

Better just to leave the government out of it, and let people vote with their feet (or eyeballs, ears, etc.)

[scfire86]

How's that again?
The number of liberal news networks far outweigh the number of conservative news stations.Against NBC,ABC,CBS,CNN,MSNBC and the failed Air America,we have Fox News.One who cable news network.
Yeah,they must be doing a lot of damage to the liberal view if we need the Fairness Doctrine to level the field against all that.
I see how it's going to be made to work:Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity will have to devote half their air time to providing a forum to an opposing view(What about Alan Colmes?) but Katie Couric won't have to give half her show to a conservative rebutal.

You're obviously not afraid to speak your mind.Could it be that no one in the government is going to restrict what you say,no matter what Randy Rhodes says?

I guess that is one way to look at it. Another might be the media isn't as liberal you might claim. Today’s conservatives scoff at the professed objectivity of network news reporters and newspaper correspondents, often brandishing a 1995 survey by the Roper Center and Freedom Forum as their smoking gun. The survey showed that 89% of the journalists polled voted for Bill Clinton in 1992, while only 7% cast a ballot for George Bush. One problem with conservative interpretations of this study is that they assume that politics trumps professionalism for liberal journalists but not for conservative ones. Far more likely is that, for both liberal and conservative journalists, politics has roughly the same priority it has for any of us regardless of profession. When there is bias, and it does exist, one can chalk it up to the personal rather than the political, or to the press’ herd instinct for ganging up as long as doing so fits the public temper at the time.

So, how do you explain the “liberal” media’s failure to rebuke Sen. Trent Lott for the string of pro-segregationist pronouncements that came before his infamous gaffe at Sen. Strom Thurmond’s 100th birthday party? Or the media’s curious lack of interest in George W. Bush’s windfall at Harken Energy and indifference to his stonewalling a Securities and Exchange Commission report investigating the episode? Or their unwillingness to challenge Vice President Dick Cheney on his cozy relationship with the energy industry while he was drafting the country’s energy policy? Or the obsession with Clinton's sex life. If the media were as liberal as you might believe, the stories I listed would have been played much differently.

All the agencies you listed are owned by conglomerates. And as such I stopped believing a long time ago they were ever going to report a story that is contrary to their interests. And those interests tend to be conservative.

Just because you say something loud and long enough doesn't necessarily make it true.

[DeputyMarshal]

I could certainly see how the Fairness Doctrine, if not itself necessarily violatove of the First Amendment, could LEAD to violations of the First Amendment.

I disagree as, coincidentally, did the Supreme Court in 1969.

If anything, Fairness Doctrine protects the 1st Amendment by requiring broadcasters to provide multiple sides of complex issues on the publically owned airwaves.

Remember it would not all be about talk radio. Which government agency would you place in charge of determining if CBS or CNN swung too far left?

It's not so much about determining if a network swings too far left (or right) as it is about a guarantee that opposing viewpoints will be not be totally excluded from coverage. The FCC seems to have handled that task rather well from the earliest inception of Fairness Doctrine in 1928 until its demise under a series of Reagan appointees in the mid 80's.

Who would be in charge of censoring the Weather Channel if they started (sorry, CONTINUED) casually ascribing every weather event to global warming?

(Let's ignore for now the difference between cable and broadcast.)

The way Fairness Doctrine worked was that someone would contact the broadcaster and request opposition coverage. The broadcaster would either provide it or not. If the petitioner wasn't satisfied that they'd been given fair coverage, they'd appeal to the FCC. Usually broadcasters provided sufficient coverage for the FCC not to get directly involved.

Better just to leave the government out of it, and let people vote with their feet (or eyeballs, ears, etc.)

That might work with newspapers and magazines but it doesn't work with broadcast media. There are only a limited number of broadcast licenses out there for a potentially unlimited number of broadcasters. Unchecked a broadcaster can systematically reduce coverage of issues and opinions that the owners disagree with to next to nothing. That's a blatant misuse of the public airwaves, IMHO.

[randsc]

Some points

I disagree as, coincidentally, did the Supreme Court in 1969.

-What the supreme court allows now and what it would allow in 1969 are entirely different things. This is the weakness inherent in the political Left's ongoing attempts to move public policy by judicial fiat.

If anything, Fairness Doctrine protects the 1st Amendment by requiring broadcasters to provide multiple sides of complex issues on the publically owned airwaves.

-That's the theory. As the FCC pointed out in repealing the Fairness Doctrine, in practice it had become a tool for restricting competing viewpoints.

It's not so much about determining if a network swings too far left (or right) as it is about a guarantee that opposing viewpoints will be not be totally excluded from coverage. The FCC seems to have handled that task rather well from the earliest inception of Fairness Doctrine in 1928 until its demise under a series of Reagan appointees in the mid 80's.

-You might want to take a look at how the members of the FCC are appointed. While it is true that the repeal occurred during the Reagan Administration, the vote of the FCC was unanimous, which means Democratic members voted for the repeal.

(Let's ignore for now the difference between cable and broadcast.)

-Good, let's. Because the weather coverage of one of my local BROADCAST television stations is provided by the Weather Channel, in a segment they call "The Weather Minute". And the casual editorializing I referred to above happens routinely.

The way Fairness Doctrine worked was that someone would contact the broadcaster and request opposition coverage. The broadcaster would either provide it or not. If the petitioner wasn't satisfied that they'd been given fair coverage, they'd appeal to the FCC. Usually broadcasters provided sufficient coverage for the FCC not to get directly involved.

-Its a different world, Conservatives are not so compliant now. I can guarantee there would be challenges and appeals to the FCC weekly. And that means the government, in the form of the FCC and ultimately the courts, would have to get involved in determining the content of broadcasts.

That might work with newspapers and magazines but it doesn't work with broadcast media. There are only a limited number of broadcast licenses out there for a potentially unlimited number of broadcasters. Unchecked a broadcaster can systematically reduce coverage of issues and opinions that the owners disagree with to next to nothing. That's a blatant misuse of the public airwaves, IMHO.

-There are a limited number of licenses. But they are sold at auction. If the ideas cannot compete, the businesses that own the licenses will lose their shirts and the licenses will end up being transferred (just ask many of the stations that used to air Air America). The only thing preventing this free movement is the sort of long-standing institutional advantage enjoyed by, for example, the original three broadcast networks. Which contra to scfire, are not conservative or even neutral, but any stretch of the imagination.

[scfire86]

WHich contra to scfire, are not conservative or even neutral, but any stretch of the imagination.

Oh Really?? Are you going to tell us the media has ignored the potentially embarassing stories about the president that I detailed? Are you going to tell us the broadcast networks ignored the Lewinsky scandal? Going back further, than Monica. The first news agency to break Paula Jones and Troopergate was CNN. The second was the LA Times. Most conservatives consider these outlets to liberal. Yet they were first in line bashing a liberal.

The liberal media boogeyman is nothing more than a canard pulled out of a bag by conservative blowhards looking for a quick buck. And from the looks of it, they are taking candy from a baby.

[randsc]

Oh Really?? Are you going to tell us the media has ignored the potentially embarassing stories about the president that I detailed? Are you going to tell us the broadcast networks ignored the Lewinsky scandal? Going back further, than Monica. The first news agency to break Paula Jones and Troopergate was CNN. The second was the LA Times. Most conservatives consider these outlets to liberal. Yet they were first in line bashing a liberal.

The liberal media boogeyman is nothing more than a canard pulled out of a bag by conservative blowhards looking for a quick buck. And from the looks of it, they are taking candy from a baby.

What I am going to tell you is that the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press at Harvard University, not exactly a conservative bastion, has
published research indicating that FIVE TIMES more journalists self-identify as liberal than as conservative. I am going to tell you that the American Journalism Review has conducted surveys indicating that a majority of DEMOCRATS feel that the major media display liberal bias. I am going to tell you that admitted liberal Evan Thomas of Newsweek stated on CNN that favorable media coverage would likely lift John Kerry's vote by 15 points. I am going to tell you that Bill Keller, Editor-in-Chief of the New York Times, has admitted that his own paper's coverage has too often been slanted by the political views of his staff, especially on social issues.

Providing an example or two of instances where the news media actually reported news that was unfavorable to liberals hardly counterbalances the fact that the majority of coverage is slanted a particular way. If conservative views got a full airing in the major television and print media outlets, talk radio would never have found a market. Talk radio became successful by filling an UNMET demand. And if you recall, it took STAR to break the taboo on reporting Clinton's zipper problems, although Gennifer Flowers and her story were well known to every political reporter in Washington.

The liberal bias of the major media is a fact obvious to any thinking person over the age of 12.

[Dalmatian190]

That the press gets called evil from both the left (when you can find them on the radio...) and the right probably means they do an OK job overall. The left-wingers rant about the corporate controlled media just as much as the right-wingers rant about the liberal reporters and editors.

I do believe there tends to be a liberal bias in the press on a broad scale -- and I subscribe to Dan Rather's view of it. His theory (paraphrased) "News people are interested in, news. Liberals tend to want to change things, and that usually means new things. Conservatives tend to want the status quo, and that means no news, or going back to stuff already done. So the news tends to find the "new" stories, not the old ones."

In today's media environment, the relevance of traditional broadcast media is very questionable.

We have the internet (I'm listening to a nearby AM station via the internet right now because it's easier then going and tuning my radio to them...).

We have broadcast, paid radio systems like XM and Sirrius. Many people subscribe to cable television or satellite TV systems.

We now lease / sell "public" radio spectrum regularly -- there's no "Fair Use Doctrine" for your mobile phone...you're under no obligation to let someone else use it, even though it's very function depends on use of publicly controlled radio spectrum.

I actually suspect if "Fair Use" was re-implemented, it would probably backfire on the liberals with the new technologies being deployed. A broadcaster carrying popular conservative programs would just have more incentive to push forward with converting to digital radio systems that allow you to broadcast more stuff in the same radio spectrum "Yep, we now offer 2 channels...Channel "A" is conservative, Channel "B" is the liberals. No one listens to them, no one advertises on them so their quality really sucks and really make themselves sound like idiots by putting Wayne's World quality programs up against professionally produced ones, but they're getting equal air time, at the same time, in the same markets."

[DeputyMarshal]

-That's the theory. As the FCC pointed out in repealing the Fairness Doctrine, in practice it had become a tool for restricting competing viewpoints.

A pretty odd statement considering that the whole purpose of the doctrine was to insure competing viewpoints could be heard...

-Good, let's. Because the weather coverage of one of my local BROADCAST television stations is provided by the Weather Channel, in a segment they call "The Weather Minute". And the casual editorializing I referred to above happens routinely.

You do realize that's a good argument in favor of the Fairness Doctrine, not against it, right? If it was still in effect you would be able to insist that your local TV station also broadcast the opposing viewpoint. Without it you can't.

And that means the government, in the form of the FCC and ultimately the courts, would have to get involved in determining the content of broadcasts.

That's their job. It's what the FCC has always done. The airwaves are public property policed by government agencies. Isn't it better to have rules in place that help insure that they can't be monopolized by the highest bidder?

There are a limited number of licenses. But they are sold at auction. If the ideas cannot compete, the businesses that own the licenses will lose their shirts and the licenses will end up being transferred

So as long as you're rich your ideas are the only ones given use of the airwaves? Sorry, everybody owns the airwaves -- not just the people with the most money.