MUNCIE STAR PRESS: "A REVIVED FAIRNESS DOCTRINE WOULD NOT BE FAIR"
Washington,
Jul 13, 2007 -
Today's Muncie Star Press has a great editorial title "A revived Fairness Doctrine would not be fair" about why the Fairness Doctrine should not be reinstituted. To read the whole editorial, click here.
Below are excerpts:
There was never anything fair about the Fairness Doctrine, and the fact that there is an effort to resurrect the Federal Communications Commission regulation that was allowed to die 20 years ago is more about politics than fairness.
Fortunately, Indiana's Rep. Mike Pence, a former radio talk show host, has spearheaded an effort to thwart a new version of the rule. Pence's campaign has succeeded in early skirmishes.
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Earlier this year, some Democrats in Congress, concerned about the predominance of conservative views on talk radio, indicated they would attempt to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine and perhaps try to expand it to other forms of media, such as cable television and the Internet.
Fortunately, a majority of House members cut them off at the pass on June 28 by resoundingly approving an amendment, authored by Pence, which prohibits funds from being used by the FCC to impose the Fairness Doctrine on broadcasters.
On June 29, Pence, Rep. Greg Walden and 110 other co-sponsors introduced the Broadcaster Freedom Act, which would prevent the reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine at all. A similar measure was introduced in the Senate.
Whether a listener's preference is for Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly (on the right) or Al Frankel and Roger Moore (on the left), no one can argue that in 2007 there aren't plenty of media outlets to suit every taste. Even if one form of media, in this case talk radio, is dominated by a single political perspective, other forms, such as newspapers and the Internet, offer plenty of options for other viewpoints. One need only change the channel or change the medium.
The idea that a government agency can decide what is fair in broadcasting is absurd, given the swings between political poles that the federal government makes on a regular basis. A Clinton-era FCC, for instance, would have come to an entirely different regulatory conclusion than the current Bush FCC.
The First Amendment's freedom of speech applies to all forms of the media, not just newspapers, and while the originators of the Fairness Doctrine may have believed they had the best interests of Americans at heart, whether their methods were constitutional is highly doubtful. The proponents of reinstating the Doctrine are misguided and politically driven.
Rep. Pence and his colleagues are correct in not allowing a regulation that was rightly relegated to history to be resurrected in 2007. As a final step, passage of the Broadcaster Freedom Act should not be a partisan issue.
