Should we Bring Back the Fairness Doctrine?
Our friends at Rasmussen Reports have come up with an interesting question. There has been much said recently about the amount of coverage the media is giving each of the candidates. And some of the media have admitted that they are giving one candidate more coverage than the other. Now there is no law that says they must give a balanced commentary - namely equal of conservative and liberal political commentary. There used to be and it was called the Fairness Doctrine.
Rasmussen Reports asked the public if they thought there should be a law like this and 47 % yes there should be such a law as long as it pertains to TV and radio stations, but not the internet. Then there was 39% who said to leave things as they are. On the question of web sites and blogs, 57% said no and 31% said no. When they went deeper into the reasons why, 71% that it was possible to get both points of view, even if you had to go to more than one source.
The poll was prompted by the fact that the Democrats in Congress have been trying to get the Fairness Doctrine activated again and of course the Republicans do not want it back.
And demographically, the public falls in line with their parties with 54% of the Democrats in favor of bringing back the Fairness Doctrine with 26% opposed and 20% are undecided. With the Republicans, it is 45% who say yes, 48% who say no and 8% who are undecided and with the independent voters it is 40% yes, 48 % no and 12% undecided. At least as far as TV and Radio go. When it comes to the internet, it is a different story entirely. The Democrats say hands off the internet by a margin of 48% to 37% margin. With the Republicans it is 61% to 29% and with the independents it is 67% to 23%.
Now this does not mean that Rush Limbaugh , or any other commentator is going to have to give a balanced conservative/liberal opinion or that he would have to share his studio and air time with a liberal commentator - the studio would never survive that one - but if he gets an half hour show, then a liberal commentator has to get one also.
The question is, would bringing the Fairness Doctrine back infringe on the stations First Amendment rights to free speech or any another rights they have to air what they want too? What is your opinion? Or are the Liberals having their right to free speech hampered because there are more Conservative shows?
Popularity: 19% [?]
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Comment by Mankato on 20 August 2008:
I believe that Ron Paul actually helped to dismantle FD regulations back in the 1980s; ironically if it were still around Paul would have had a LOT more media coverage during his presidential campaign. FD is not a free market idea and it is an affront to free speech. What I might consider is requiring all media companies to report the names of all shareholders with greater than, say, a 1% stake in the company. This way people would know who is funding the programs they’re hearing.
Comment by Bugg on 28 August 2008:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press” - hmm sounds familiar. Good for Ron Paul if he helped get rid of this crap.
Comment by Silouan Thompson on 28 August 2008:
So under the Fairness Doctrine, any time a radio show covers some government functionary making a statist comment, they’d have to give equal time for libertarian views to be expressed?
Cool!
Or would it mean that *only* two points of view would be permitted? So at any time the FCC could dictate the only two permissible opinions?
Scary!
Comment by James Parker on 29 August 2008:
The media blackout of any meaningful discussion of issues that people care about–when did that begin?
It certainly was in full swing by the ’80’s.
But the worst part of the blackout began in 1996, when the “CPD” was formed to keep the Presidential Debates to 2 candidates. The D’s and R’s conspired to do this after Ross Perot embarrassed them in ‘92. And big media bought in.
I don’t know about the Fairness Doctrine, or even the FCC for that matter, but the CPD has got to go.
Comment by Kris on 1 September 2008:
Where did this idea originate. Certainly the history of newspaper publishing shows no sign of “fairness”. I don’t disagree with the basic idea of fairness, but wonder how to address some issues. First of all, what to do when the “other side” is clearly an irrelevant fringe or a scientifically proven falsehood. Do these deserve equal time with legitimate news issues? Secondly, and most importantly, enforcing such a doctrine means government intrusion and control of the media. Forget the counterbalances of three branches of government. If one person, party or branch manages to control the media, freedom as we know it will go the way of the Dodo bird.