Reinstate the Fairness Doctrine

I was too young to remember politics in the 1980s. I was more concerned with Robotech than Reganomics. I've heard here, however, that's where it all started going down hill. That actor who got elected President repealed something called the Fairness Doctrine. It's purpose was the regulate the media, to make sure "fair and balanced" was an actual standard, not a thoroughly abused slogan.

What exactly was it? I know the general concept behind it, but how exactly did enforce fairness?

I ask this because for quite a while, I've been pondering a way to get our broken media to actually work for us again. They have completely disregaurded their responsibility to keep our citizens well informed. Our founding fathers placed the fate of this nation into the hands of it's citizens, giving for the first time in the modern world, the ability to govern themselves. In order for a citizen run government to suceed, it's citizens would have to be well educated, and well informed.

Schools were formed across the country, to ensure that the next generation of citizens would be well educated. Newspapers sprouted up across the nation to ensure it's citizens were well informed. So important was the role of newspapers in this new society, that they were afforded special acknowldgement in the First Amendment, Freedom of the Press.

Freedom of the Press was established to ensure that the media could inform the citizenry of what it's government was up to, so that those citizens could hold their representatives accountable for what was done in their name. Freedom of the Press was established to prevent the government from censoring the news. Censorship would leave it's citizens in the dark, and allow corruption to spread through the halls of power without fear of exposure.

The Rights accorded in the First Amendment are still in place, but the Press no loger has Freedom. Today the press feels the pressure of censorship so heavily, that they feel impotent to offer any real news. It isn't the government exerting this pressure on the press... it's the corporations who now run both the press and the government.

We can't get honest reporting about healthcare because the insurance companies won't allow it. We couldn't get honest reporting about the war in Iraq because the Defense contractors wouldn't allow it. Of course Fox News is another animal all together.

he isn't seen as a visionary in the future of our history.

I programmed a talk radio station in the 80's. The Fairness Doctrine was installed in the 60s to ensure ALL candidates got access to certain parts of the airwaves. For example, a station couldn't favor one candidate by only selling advertising to them or charging them a lower rate...Fairness Doctrine required stations to offer the same rate and availability to all candidates. It also covered Public Service programs...something that almost no longer exists on radio...if you offered Candidate A 15 minutes of time, you had to offer the same 15 to any other "bona fide" (generally still excluded third parties and independents) candidate. It didn't cover any news coverage...say you didn't have to get a quote from other candidates if Candidate A was part of a news story. Also it had nothing to do with talk shows that were considered "Entertainment" (a reason Rushbo likes to call himself an "Entertainer").

The problem isn't fairness in front of the microphones, it's fairness and diversity in ownership. Thanks to "de-regulation", a majority of major broadcast properties are in the hands of a few large (and conservative) corporations that choose the formats and syndicate the programs. Our "public" airwaves were sold to the highest bidders who have driven the industry into financial ruin as well as creating a fetid AM band that only attracts the most rabid of wingnuts these days.

Then, there's always the question of what is truly "fairness". Truth can have many perspectives...thus the term has always been an abstract.

The solution to more "fairness" is more voices. It's breaking up the corporate stranglehold on broadcasting and empowering those who want to offer alternative programming and opinions a platform to be heard.

Cheers...

I'd rather see Truth in Advertising standards applied to news. Opinion should be allowed but clearly labeled as such. The TiA rules are: Advertising must be truthful and non-deceptive; Advertisers must have evidence to back up their claims; and Advertisements cannot be unfair. Like that will ever happen.

What we really need to do is bust up the media giants. The news media should be truly independent and separate from corporations like GE. No one person or corporation should be allowed control over so much of the media like Rupert Murdoch. And it should be a serious crime to tell a lie and call it news.

We need to bust up the media giants, and we need a new form of fairness doctrine.

Communication. The Fairness Doctine, or something similar, began in the late 40's. There weren't many stations, and as more licenses were being sought, this was a way to ensure fair and balanced viewpoints were presented. Now there are multitudes of broadcast outlets, and such control, or oversight, is not seen to be necessary. Even the SCOTUS supported this view in a couple of cases.

<snip from the last paragraph of the article> Currently, however, there is no required balance of controversial issues as mandated by the fairness doctrine. The public relies instead on the judgment of broadcast journalists and its own reasoning ability to sort out one-sided or distorted coverage of an issue. Indeed, experience over the past several years since the demise of the doctrine shows that broadcasters can and do provide substantial coverage of controversial issues of public importance in their communities, including contrasting viewpoints, through news, public affairs, public service, interactive and special programming.

<entire article at link>
http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/F/htmlF/fairnessdoct/fairnessdoct.htm

All these people saying the magic solution is to break up media ownership are forgetting one thing. In the '50 and '60s, there were only 3 television networks. Only in major cities like Los Angeles were local stations big enough to cover national news stories. There were two wire services, UPI and AP, which newspapers used to cover national news. There was a real bottle neck on information due to the technology: people got their news from daily newspapers, listening to headlines on the 5 minute radio news, or watching one of the three networks in the evening. People were aware that with such a small quantity of news, the quality of the news had to be above reproach. Hence there were "trusted" news people and reporters like Walter Cronkite.

Yet today, with 24 hour cable news, 24 hour newsradio, and the Internet where it is just as easy to pick an article in a newspaper halfway around the world people on the left bitch about "consolidation". There is tremendous quantity of "news" -- it's everywhere, just like McDonald's. Unfortunately, the quality is just about the same -- high enough to be acceptable to sell to the masses, but low enough to be cheap and lacking in proper nutrition. Nowadays, the appetite people have for news is kind of like that of a chicken -- they will ingest anything: stale bread, slugs, small pebbles, Glenn Beck, moldy cheese, Limbaugh, egg shells, worms, Lou Dobbs, etc.

I am confident that if the quantity of news went down to the trickle of 50 years ago, the quality would pop right back up. People would quit wasting their time listening to bullshit and seek out accurate analysis. Out of all the schlock on cable, I seek out short bits of accurate commentary: YouTube clips of 'The Young Turks' and Bill Maher's "New Rules". If my daily news was limited to 3 YouTube clips, I could listen to those and feel informed. I have tried listening to Limbaugh when traveling by car in remote areas (which is often all you can pick up in those areas), and he can babble on for half an hour without conveying a single newsworthy event.

Possibly laying heavy fines on any show, or network, that uses "NEWS" in it's title, yet doesn't adhere to journalistic ethics standards.

Standards like:
Don't mix editorial with facts. All too often these days, the bare facts are not presented by themselves, like they should be. They are often garnished by a mix of speculation, and colored by opinion. When presented in this fashion, it is difficult to distinguish between what is pure fact, and what is speculation.

Example:

Pure fact is the straight scoop. No embellishments. "the sky is blue now, this morning it was a mixture of reds purples, and oranges."
Pure fact = "President Barack Obama will be delivering a televised address about education. It will be aired in public schools nationwide."

Speculation is essentially a guess. It is usually identified by key phrases like "I'll bet" or "I'm guessing that"...
Speculation = "The press release says it's about education, but I'll bet he will sneak a bit about healthcare reform in there somewhere."

Opinion is a personal belief, or thought. it is usually identified by key phrases like "I think" or "I believe".
Opinion = "I believe this is nothing but a blatant attempt to push his agenda on us by influencing our children."

Opinion and Speculation delivered as fact is really confusing, and sometimes purposely misleading. There are no key words or phrases to identify the statements as opinion or speculation. There presentation, though not based on fact, are delivered as such.
Opinion and Speculation delivered as fact = "Barack Obama is leading a bunch of Muslim Nazi Communists in a coup against our government! He's going to indoctrinate our children! You need to panic and lock yourselves in your basements and wrap your family up with plastic sheeting and duct tape."

If you have an opinion about something, save it for the editorial segment. You know, the part that was usually preceded by a statement like "The following opinion does not necessarily reflect the opinion of this show, this station, or our sponsors..etc"


A simple standard like that could be enforceable. It would also curb Fox's ability to mislead others... no doubt they will still try.