The "Fairness Doctrine"

Well, I’ve been absolutely swamped the last few days, so catching up on news and blogging has been down on the list. I did want to call you attention to this:



A lot of people don’t know what the “Fairness Doctrine” is, but basically it says that because the airwaves are owned “by the people”, that every station should have to present both sides of an issue or be neutral. Well, if you watch the evening news, you know how different people interpret neutral.

If you don’t think this is a big deal, then maybe you don’t understand what is out there. Right now there are dozens of local and syndicated radio shows that have millions of listeners. The biggest by far is Rush Limbaugh who has about 20 MILLION listeners a week and has the most listened to radio program in the history of the world. Sean Hannity is next in line and then is followed by a host of other shows including Dennis Prager, Hugh Hewitt, Michael Medved, Laura Ingraham, Bill O’Reily, Mike Gallagher… the list goes on and on. It’s extensive. Of these shows the vast majority of them are on the “Right”. The first liberal/progressive doesn’t show up on the list until #7, if you count Don Imus as a lib. If you don’t then you would certainly count Ed Shultz at #8. Of course even Ed isn’t as far left as most of the others, in fact he describes himself as a “gun totin’, meat eatin’ lefty”.

The biggest experiment into an all progressive radio network up to this point was Air America, which tanked so enormously that most of it’s biggest players have gotten out of the game. Most of their stations went bankrupt and some of the show hosts even complained of missed pay checks.

Rush Limbaugh on the other hand just signed an 8 year, $400 MILLION dollar contract, the largest in radio history. Why does he make so much? People enjoy listening to him. Conservative talk gets listeners, which means more advertising money, which means bigger contracts and more conservative hosts. It’s about a free market. If people wanted more liberal talk, then the liberal hosts would get more listeners.

So the reality of the “Fairness Doctrine” has nothing to do with fairness. It has everything to do with limiting free speech. When you hear “Fairness Doctrine” what they mean is the “Silence Right Wing Radio Act”. I would hope that even if it does pass, it would get shot down by the Supreme Court for being outrageously unconstitutional. But it shouldn't have to come to that.

Nancy Pelosi is a HUGE fan of the FD, but Obama has said that he does not support it. Of course not supporting it doesn’t necessarily mean having the gumption to buck the Democratic leadership in the House and Senate by vetoing it. I think it is more likely that the FD would be a lot like other things that have been ‘reconsidered’. You know like accepting public funding, FISA, banning hand guns… you get the idea.