Senators Pushing for Return of Equal-time Rules

Source: Reuters via Hollywood Reporter

The Fairness Doctrine, which forced broadcasters to offer equal time to both sides of controversial issues, was abolished in 1987, paving the way for talk radio to take the opinionated -- and popular -- form it has today.

Now, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and such influential Democratic senators as Barbara Boxer and Chuck Schumer are pushing for its return, or something like it. Could the equal-time provisions pull a Don Imus and make a radio comeback?

It could, industry insiders say. And the government-mandated programing restrictions that come with it could hobble an already struggling industry. Talk-radio hosts are unlikely to accept a new Fairness Doctrine without a fight, though. Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity are among those already railing against it daily.

By some estimates, conservatives on talk radio dominate liberals by a ratio of 10-to-1, hence the call by some liberals to bring back the Fairness Doctrine. But Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) inserted language into the Federal Communications Commission's current budget barring it from being reinstated this year.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUSTRE4AP15J20081126

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Radio and TV need this; my fear is that Republicans would attach a poison pill for the internet.

...the media cares for nothing but dollars and cents, no interest in the public interest at all.

That tells us all we need to know. Fuck 'em, REGULATE THEIR ASSES!

Corporations are state-created entities. We allow them to exists because we believe they serve the public interest. When they fail to serve the public interest, we have all right to either regulate them or abolish them. After all, we the people control the state, and we don't have to allow corporations to use and abuse us for profit if we don't want to.

The United States is a LIBERAL Country.

:dem:

-Laelth

Two reasons why the Fairness Doctrine is so important and so vital to a democracy.

Limbaugh and Hannity... preaching to the 20% choir.

Color me scared.





NOT.

I mean, gee, it would give them so much more airtime, wouldn't it?

Oh, on second thought, they're all just lying when they say "librul media" and they know quite clearly that they're lying.

Put the ball in the conservatives' court. If they really believe that the media are so liberal, then a Fairness Doctrine would INCREASE their spin on the issues.

But they know the conservatives have a death grip on the bias in the media.

The Fairness Doctrine had nothing whatsoever to do with Equal Time. The are two separate concepts and doctrines.

Equal time just gives everyone an equal amount of time to air their version of the truth.

Almost impossible to enforce. You would have shows get Alan Colmes wannabes as an example if the left point of view. You would also have people accusing news programs of being left/right biased and being sued by everyone.

The station would be investigated by the FCC I'd assume for not having equal air time, but thats according to the old Fairness Doctrine. They would revamp the law if they were to pass it again, with differant wording I am sure

take out sue and replace with filing FCC complaints. Also, since it only applies to broadcast and not cable, that would present an unfair advantage.

And like I said, theres going to be a rewrite of the original document I'm sure. But I very much doubt this passing, FOX has been fighting against this for years personally.

and I realize that the repukes will be back in power someday.

up until Reagan dropped it.

I grew up during that era.

You had talk radio, but there had to be some pretense towards balance.

Your local TV station could air editorials (which were always separate from news), but had to allow time for rebuttals.

Believe me, nobody was "censored". You still had obnoxious right wingers on the air.

You just didn't have ONLY right wingers.

BTW, stations had to devote a certain amount of time to public service programs as well. They could get very creative here.

Things have become so polarized these days. The right wing will use any weapon they can to silence the left, this included. I could see it being used on the nightly news, then expanded to include MSNBC, The Daily Show, and then who knows, Keith Olbermann on Sunday football?

(ssssssssst)

video crawl: "We are experiencing temporary audio difficulties."

Very funny :).

but they didn't have a megaphone while all others were silent because we HAD a fairness doctrine, so their insanity wasn't as LOUD back then.

you had Morton Downey and Joe Pine.
There's always been room for right wing
propoganda in the media. What happened with the
repeal of Fairness is that troglodyte station owners
like Clearchannel could devote 100 percent of
air time to the hate message.

I think it would be great for stations that carry Rush to
start looking at Steph Miller to balance.

but presently, Liberals have to PAY for "Progressive Radio," like XM Satellite Radio.

Consider the differences in the comparable audience sizes: Free vs Pay-to-Listen ...
Conservatives reach a much larger population, at basically no charge to the listener -- invaluable tool for "catapulting the propaganda."

weight after just SIXTY FUCKING YEARS.

It is the turning of the airwaves over to propagandists that has had disastrous results, not the fairness doctrine.

Oh, and the fairness doctrine has nothing to do with news programming. News is news (except when it's Faux News). Fairness doctrine only regulates partisan opinion programming. Unless, of course, a 'news' show is proven to be airing opinion and CALLING it news.

But who would do that, after all?

They need to focus on destroying the large cross media corporate ownership. It's time to trust bust. The major problem with Fairness comes from the broad spectrum mass media that crosses media and crowds out opposing views.

it was enforced for many years-and television news was actually informative then-NOT just one big old right wing propaganda machine. People behaved in a far more adult manner on news programs back then. Everything was far more civilized and honest-not perfect, but on thousand times better than the crapfest that passes for "news" today. Maybe you love Right Wing pro-corporate propaganda, but many of us have gotten pretty tired of it and would like a more truth in our news programming.

Within the Fairness Doctrine, if you trashed someone, you had to give them an opp to respond.

Pat Paulsen was this weird dead-pan comedian: I read that Dickie and Tommie Smothers has found him in a self-promoted Walk on Water event where he sank (obviously) but they loved his shtick.

Anyhow, he decided he would run for president (probably 1968?) and he had some very funny campaign promises and slogans: a popular segment on the show, usually reserved for the very end of each broadcast.

One night, they announced that Richard Nixon's campaign had successfully argued for Equal Time! Nixon hated the Smothers almost as much as they hated him: the fact that he had used them in this way was mind-boggling!

They let him have his say and then quietly dropped Paulsen's bid.

Tut-tut

Kick 'n Rec.

:kick:

Would they be required to have RW shows? Or would it just equalize all of radio across the dial?

And if they spent 10 minutes trashing Newt, they'd have to give Newt the opportunity to respond on their airwaves.

Works fine for me.

There aren't many shows left on AA which merit anyone's use of time.

I suppose

Do they get fined? I guess I just don't get how this is going to work in reality. I can't remember the last time a RW'er showed up on Liberal talk radio or Countdown. It's not for lack of trying, they just don't want to expose themselves to a smart host and audience.

Conversely I'm sure lots of Liberals would be very happy to have equal time on RW hate radio.

Liberal radio shows have 1/10th bandwidth capacity as most of their conservative counterparts. At 6pm here AAR goes off the air pretty much, yet Rush and friends will blow their holes all through the night because their stations have higher budgets and reach more people.

The Bushies have survived on election fraud and disinformation, combined with domination of media for so long that they don't remember how to argue in the arena of ideas.

Thus the complete Palinization/Hannitization of this bunch of mad authoritarians and their followers as they circle for Gotterdammerung.

They fear equal footing more than anything.

They have no ideas but bullying and rhetorical trickery nowadays. With VERY few exceptions.

They would get MUSHED if both sides had equal time. They have been living with the benefits of their Bushie-Generated False Reality Bubble for so long, it's become a crutch to them and they have ATROPHIED their abilities to actually come up with ideas that aren't criminal thefts or abuses of power.

Reinstating the Fairness Doctrine would FORCE the Republican Party to reject the outright dishonesty and propaganda of the Bush-Cheney-Rove-Palin-Hannity-Limbaugh-Savage Weiner Wing or perish.

That, of course, is conditional on even a little BIT of fairness and sanity in our Cable TV "news" lunacy.

I heartily approve of this. It is awful that it has come to this, but the Bushies have abused the airwaves dishonestly for so long now that steps MUST be taken...NOT to reverse the situation and make the media all-Democratic-Viewpoint-all-the-time, but a reasonable 50-50 or thereabouts with sanity restored so that at least both sides can agree on a basic set of demonstrable facts.

The Bushies have literally destroyed even that small comity these last 28 years. But maybe it's just human nature and we would behave just as badly if we had such money and turned it into unchecked power and cacophonous, seductive propaganda at our command. The Bandwagon Effect. And the Founders were wise.

But I digress. The good decent hardworking thinking people of America, yes, even those tens of millions in the Republican Party still left there, misled by their faith or otherwise confused to see that this no no longer about right and left but RIGHT and WRONG!

It would not be a good thing for this nation if the Republican Party was destroyed, any more than it would be if the Freepers' wet dreams had come true.

But the Republican Party must cleanse itself of and repudiate it's criminal and lunatic elements, and rejoin the round-table of cooperation and debate.

Problem is, there's not a whole lot left in the Republican Leadership BESIDES the criminal and lunatic elements.

may be the right first step.

Only took then what, 20 years. Imbeciles. All of them. OHH, let's give our opponent the guns while we watch them buy all the gun makers, then challenge them to a fight. Doubt if they have the balls to follow thru. The only one who seems to have the courage to speak up is PRESIDENT OBAMA. And that comes from a Hillary supporter. Little dick sean and pillhead will cry foul and they will collapse. I'd bet on it.

who determines what is liberal or conservative and who determines which people represent those beliefs?

http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/F/htmlF/fairnessdoct/fairnessdoct.htm

Time to bring it back as an antidote to the poison of right wing talk radio.

Congress can require that the radio stations provide airtime to countering viewpoints, but they can't dictate what (if any) pay those networks provide to their talking heads. Before the Fairness Doctrine was repealed, most stations satisfied its requirements by making public broadcast time available for anyone who wanted to run those viewpoints on the air. If you wanted to produce it in your own studio and provide it to the station free of charge, they would run it (taped, of course, so no live discussions). If you wanted to produce it in THEIR studios, they charged you for the use of their facilities, and you had to pay the salaries of any employees required to support your program. That's right...you had to pay THEM to get YOUR radio show broadcast if you wanted to do it live. And if you wanted to do it regularly? No dice...public broadcast time was scheduled first come, first served. You might end up broadcasting at 3PM one day, and 1:30 AM the next. You might get an hour for one broadcast, but be cut to 15 minutes the following day because someone else wants to share the slot. That makes it virtually impossible to attract a regular audience, much less advertisers.

"So, WTF is so wrong with being fair?" If their side is so all-fired right, then their arguments should be able to stand up by themselves.

But they can't.

And they know it. Sunlight on their screed will be light water on the wicked witch.

Imagine not being able to see Keith Olbermann but only Lou Dobbs and Bill O.Now imagine your cable company ignoring you for 5 years when you PLEAD for them to carry LINK TV or MSNBC.

if any exist.

When those scumbags "joked" about assassinating Obama, they should have been jailed and the station that aired it fined big time. Enough that they'd put an end to it.

Every instance of inciting violence should be punished and severely.

If someone even jokingly said bomb on a plane, they'd be in deep, deep crap. The same should be true of the airways.

Craps, if they can punish a zillion t.v. stations because of a tasteless wardrobe malfunction, then why can't they punish stations that incite violence against doctors, gays, public officials, politicians, churchs, etc.

.............fuck 'em, don't renew the license.

The anti-gay talking heads will probably get laughed out of the studio. But I think we'll see a more balanced look at proposed gun legislation overall.

Fairness Doctrine if they declare they are not biased. Otherwise they should have to declare constantly if they have a political agenda. Like a warning before the Hannity show would be nice telling viewers that bullshit may follow.

Air America would have no problem declaring where they are coming from, and so would not be forced to placate the wingnuts.

CNN and MSNBC would probably attempt to comply

And FAUX News would have a dilemma. Keep calling it "fair and balanced" and follow the rules, or throw out all pretense of being balanced and admit where they are coming from.

In fact, regulating the airwaves at all is an anachronism.

For many of us, certainly for myself, the Internet has far eclipsed any other media as my primary source of information.

Consequently I find all the hoopla over regulating profanity, nudity, and any other taboo subject "over the air" to be a joke. Not only are the horses out of the barn on this one, the horses have gone forth and populated the rest of the planet!

It is absurd, for example, to raise such a ruckus over a Janet Jackson "nipple slip" when any grade-schooler can type in "boobies" in Google and see far far far far far far more than that absurdity at any time.

You can't regulate the internet, nor should we - it represents the epitome of free speech. It is the ultimate fairness doctrine as it enables anyone to go seek out information from whatever source they care to.

Further regulations on "over the air" mediums will simply push them to the internet that much faster.

...then maybe there would be more political diversity among the CEOs, and more would give liberal radio hosts a chance.

Stephanie Miller (liberal radio host) doesn't support bringing back The Fairness Doctrine, but she support ownership limits because she thinks that would cause her to be on more stations.

The Internet will eclipse all. I personally spend way way way more time online then I do watching TV or listening to the radio.

Trying to regulate TV and Radio is a huge waste of effort.

Even though I use the internet more than the radio.

When dealing with Righties is to remind them that this will go a long way to curb the "Liberal Media". In their eyes and ears, a station like FAUX News is "fair and balanced" and all the rest are pinko commie indoctrinators. Or so it has been pounded into them ever since the fairness doctrine was abolished.

You ask them "Wouldn't you like laws in place that will force all those liberal media stations to HAVE to be more fair and balanced and allow a conservative viewpoint?"

Of course what we know, (as well as Rush, Murdoch, Hannity etc..), is that conservative/corporate slants are the norm for ALL mainstream media news. Media Matters has done numerous comparisons that show the guest makeup on interviews which shows that rarely is a liberal allowed to speak independently, its always with a shrieking wing-nut harpy along for the ride. And many times they are outflanked 2 to 1. Yet one or more conservatives are allowed to pontificate without a left leaning guest on to counter.

Coulter has a new book out about how the 'liberal media' had it in the bag for Obama. Well she should be happy with this idea then. As should any of those right wing loudmouths that scream foul about the leftist media. But we here know they know that they are just full of hot air and any new fairness doctrine will be bad for 'catapulting the propaganda'.

So that is what is great about it. Nancy should, but won't, couch it in that way. "There has been a lot of concern in the last decade about the so-called "liberal media", this will go a long way in correcting that imbalance"

LOL this could work.

Of course Reid and Pelosi will probably shrink back from this anyways, even if they managed to get 60 in the senate. Those two still haven't gotten the message yet of "yes we can"

...it doesn't quote even one Congress member saying we should bring back The Fairness Doctrine.

I think the answer is that the majority of people can tell when they are being bull shitted and when they aren't.

A certain amount of people need a talk show host to tell them what to think but most of us don't. I don't think a fairness doctrine would have changed the out come of the last election one bit.

What we need is real objective news reporting on all stations not a liberal form of conservative talk.

Bushboy has been propped up by an extensive propaganda machine that has operated unfettered by government restraint. Would he have won again in '04 if certain facts had been made known? I doubt it.

Obama won in spite of the 24/7 trash talk on virtually every radio talk show and most cable news shows. How big would his margin have been without it? Considerably higher, imo.

There needs to be a law against outright lies being presented as facts. Whether you want to call that the Fairness Doctrine or some other language is irrelevant. Progress is impossible when all efforts are spent debunking organized disinformation campaigns. Which is another way of saying Democracy cannot survive in a vacuum and the last 8 years proves it.

It just mandated that controversial issues give airtime for all sides. Didn't have to give equal time for all sides, just had to give some time to all of them, and the Fairness doctrine actually gave media outlets a lot of leeway in terms of how it allocated that time.

A radio station that played Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, Neil Boortz and Randi Rhodes on a particular day would be in compliance with the Fairness Doctrine.

As for the Equal Time rule, that was a rule designed for a specific situation - elections. If you gave airtime to one candidate, you had to offer equal airtime to the other candidate. It is confused with the Fairness Doctrine, but different from the Fairness Doctrine.

And for just as many liberal rebuttals as I applauded, there were the reactionary backlash ones given a hearing as well. People were exposed to several points of view on any subject. I recall that the counterpoint to any issue was widely understood. Not so, today. I know so many Fox watchers at the office who don't have a clue about what's going on in this country and around the world -- they just parrot whatever Limbaugh says on the radio and believe that they are astute and intelligently informed. I've seen and heard it uniformly. A return to the way things operated very well for decades is fine in my book. It changed at the end of the Reagan Administration and the Bush years brought on Limbaugh on radio and the hate preachers on TV.

.. you can't let one right-wing company (Clear Channel) control all the radio statiolns in America and expect fair news coverage... DUH?

Their time in the sun has come and gone.

I think this is a strategic blunder. Why not do something about the real problem, which is media consolidation? There will be a backlash if this is pushed hard. Stupid.

Reinstating the Fairness Doctrine will cost a lot of time and "political capital". Let's deal with shrinking the media megacorps first and then see if we need to enforce diversity on the air.

And who decides which two viewpoints qualify as deserving of equal time?

and it is in the public's interest to restore the Fairness Doctrine.

clipping the wings of the Republican corporate media.... Amazing.

Ah, I get it! It's the problem with the enforceablity, you know? It worked in the past. But impossible now. Lot of "water under the bridge" and all that. Ah, well. Nice dream while it lasted.

When the Democrats start reforming your election system, what's the betting there won't be a whole scad of our DU progressives pointing out how impracticable and counter-productive it will be to replace the machines!

I'm all for ditching computer voting machines for optical scans. You can count them fast and it has a good paper trail. On subject I'm not against the fairness doctrine in principal, but first we need to break up mega media companies like Clear Channel. They control a ridiculous amount of markets and their company is dominated by Republicans who put like-minded programs on the air. After we do this, then we can see if there is an imbalance and implement the Fairness Doctrine.

a teat for private businesses, for Big Business, to exploit. By definition, they have no loyalty to anything but the bottom line, and honest elections are far too precious their intrusion in the process to be allowed.

What do you have against pencil and paper - which most of the rest of the world has been using, and have proved far more apt the task? The more simple and primitive the technology, the better.

Our nation was ruled far less by big corporations when we DID have a fairness doctrine for those sixty years. You can't put the cart before the horse. Breaking up media ownership will have little, if any, effect without a return of the Fairness Doctrine. They would just continue business as usual. We've seen that with just about every corporate break up.

One would almost think they believe Air America is going to multiply and there will be mini-Keith Olbermanns on every 3rd radio station in every city in America.

I live in a county where people voted Obama over McCain 2:1, and every commercial outlet that's been approached to carry a liberal talk host insists the market won't support it.

who: A). weren't alive to remember how much better the media was with the fairness doctrine intact, and B). have somehow been seduced by the right wing meme "it's not enforceable". It was enforceable for sixty years, kiddos, it's just as enforceable today. Freedom of speech applies to BOTH sides-and that's the whole point! When one side has a megaphone and the other doesn't even get heard, it's no longer a democracy. It's despotism.

REPUBLICS don't want equal time rules.

DAMN that LIBRUL media!

:eyes:

it simply required that at some comparable time slot, there was an opportunity for a fair response on significant issues

That wouldn't affect the content of (say) Limbaugh's show at all: it could, however, require the broadcaster sometimes to make time available for a fair explanation of a contrary view when the issue under discussion was important

If TV airs misleading fictional accounts of 9/11, why shouldn't someone who's been misrepresented have the opportunity to respond at some point, not necessarily during the show? When rightwing radio talk hosts claimed Clinton was responsible for the Ruby Ridge shooting (which actually occurred during Bush I), or claimed that Clinton was massing jack-booted storm-troopers to herd Americans into concentration camps, why shouldn't there be an opportunity for response?

Countries that have nationalized broadcasting have far fewer choices than we do.