16 Jan 2007
The Return of the Fairness Doctrine?

Dennis the Menace is at it again: I've been catching bits of this on AM talk radio over my lunch hour. It seems that the overwhelming majority of talk radio hosts are a.)Republicans and b.)opposed to the return of this odious doctrine.

And after a fashion, I agree with them! It is odious indeed for the State to dictate the content of private speech: in fact, we have that whole First Amendment thingy to deal with exactly this kind of situation.

I even heard one draw a parallel between this and the current trend towards anti-smoking regulations: he pointed out that it was wrong for the government to tell a private business that it's customers couldn't smoke, and that it was equally wrong to tell a private, commercial radio outlet what they can and cannot broadcast.

But that analogy got me to really thinking: are radio stations really private entities? Nope - they don't own the spectrum, they license it from the government! And for a pretty sizable chunk of change, too...

Basically, back in the 1920's, the State decided to favor certain interests with radio licenses - new licenses for new frequencies are rare as hen's teeth these days, despite the technological advances that would permit virtually unlimited broadcast bandwidth. And that's driven the price of commercial radio stations through the roof, insuring that only large corporate structures can hold and control radio and television outlets.

So why shouldn't the owner of the airwaves be allowed to exert control? Why shouldn't the State impose a "Fairness Doctrine" on the lessees of it's property?

There are two possible equitable solutions to this: either the FCC starts licensing all comers, or they pack it in and get out of the business entirely, letting the courts adjudicate issues of interference as they do issues of trespass and harassment in the non-electronic world.

But until one of those two scenarios (or one like them) come to pass, my advice to the Republican supporters of private property whining about this re-imposition of evenhandedness on the part of the property owner is to shut up and deal with it. Or get into an area of media where you really are a private enterprise, and not a government vassal masquerading as a business.

Last week at the National Conference for Media Reform, Ohio congressman Dennis Kucinich (a long-shot candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination) stated that the Fairness Doctrine may be reinstated. Kucinich will be heading up a new House subcommittee that will focus on issues around the FCC. The Fairness Doctrine was an FCC regulation that required broadcast media to present controversial issues in an honest, equal, and balanced manner. The FCC repealed it in 1987 — Democrats at the time tried to forestall this move but were ultimately thwarted by a veto by President Ronald Reagan. Critics of the Fairness Doctrine have stated that it was only used to intimidate and silence political opposition. At the convention, Kucinich said, 'We know the media has become the servant of a very narrow corporate agenda. We are now in a position to move a progressive agenda to where it is visible.'

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22:44 /Politics | 1 comment | permanent link