Friday, February 13, 2009
A note on the "Fairness Doctrine": Fear is only paranoid if it is irrational
Back in the fall, respected lefty bloggers who purport to revere intellectual honesty argued that promises or aspirations of Democrats to reinstate the "Fairness Doctrine" to restrain talk radio were just talk, and that the conservative counter-campaign was paranoid. Steve Benen said that it was "sad to watch" conservatives "believe" that the Democratic leadership would make reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine a priority.
Well, that sock-puppet of the far right, CNN, must also be "sad to watch" (well, it is, but not for the reasons Benen would supply):
More and more Democrats in Congress are calling for action that Republicans warn could muzzle right-wing talk radio.
Representative Maurice Hinchey, a Democrat from New York is the latest to say he wants to bring back the "Fairness Doctrine," a federal regulation scrapped in 1987 that would require broadcasters to present opposing views on public issues.
"I think the Fairness Doctrine should be reinstated," Hinchey told CNNRadio. Hinchey says he could make it part of a bill he plans to introduce later this year overhauling radio and t-v ownership laws.
Senators Debbie Stabenow of Michigan and Tom Harkin of Iowa have also jumped on the bandwagon.
Of course, it is possible that Benen and Yglesias would argue that the Democrats do not really want to bring back the Fairness Doctrine, but they want to drive conservatives insane by saying that they will, thereby distracting the right from more substantive issues that the left actually cares about. The trouble with that theory for Benen and Co. is that it would establish that lefties are not any more intellectually honest than conservatives. Talk about your tough pills to swallow.
My own theory is that Benen and Yglesias are narrowly correct insofar as the Democratic leadership does not want to make reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine a high priority. However, the leadership would move it up the agenda in a hurry if (i) it needs to make a cheap concession to the left, or (ii) the opposition of talk radio is perceived to have derailed an important "progressive" legislative initiative. The Republican preemptive war against the reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine may, therefore, be a waste of effort today, but it might also make it more difficult for the donks to bring it up in the future.
MORE: I had missed that Bill Clinton has also endorsed reinstating the Fairness Doctrine, with a qualified limited hangout.
CWCID: Glenn Reynolds.
7 Comments:
By 
, at
Fri Feb 13, 10:51:00 PM:
Words used to mean things. The "fairness doctrine" isn't.
It s/b called "the prohibition of article one of the U.S. Constitution doctrine.
"Pro choice" sounds so, well, harmless. But it really means pro-death for many.
The "religion of peace" isn't. It s/b the "psychosis of choice for bloodthirsty savages."
By , at
Sat Feb 14, 01:45:00 AM:
Pussy Dems can't win with policy, so they attempt to shut up the opposition. Unconstitutional pussies.
By 
Noocyte, at
Sat Feb 14, 03:11:00 AM:
Efforts to keep this issue in the public discourse are not wasted. A concerted campaign to get people talking about the implications of this horrid doctrine could constitute an investment in the future debate, should liberals be craven enough to try and reinstate it.
We must not be seen as a bunch of "anti-fairness" types, jumping, too late, into the conversation and shouting "No!" The more people know about the true impact of the "FD" on political speech, the better. We must not become complacent on this one, but maintain a proactive and relentless pressure to prevent its being slipped into the national agenda in some seemingly benign form.
By Dutch, at
Sat Feb 14, 08:37:00 PM:
How fair is it? Soros & the like fund Air America, what private entity funds free conservative radio. The listeners have decided what they want to hear & that scares democrats.
By , at
Sat Feb 14, 11:12:00 PM:
CALL IT THE UNFAIRNESS DOCTINE it will be used by the left-wing demacreeps to control everything we see and hear just like in the 60s sci fi series THE OUTER LIMITS
By Georg Felis, at
Sun Feb 15, 12:59:00 AM:
TH has a point, my opinion is that the recent endorsement of the Fairness Doctrine is either A) The Dems trying to siphon money out of their lunatic left base and from Media companies trying to pay Danegeld (Please Mrs. Pelosi, go pick on somebody else, here is a pile of money) or B) a sign of impending insanity from a party that seems determined to whack themselves over the head with a stick.
By , at
Sun Feb 15, 03:04:00 PM:
Can you imagine the Fairness Doctrine applied to NPR or the TV show The View, or CNN or MSNBC?
Fariness cuts both ways and if someone with more time (and tolerance) than I would study the amount of time cable and broadcast TV spends on the left point of view compared to the right point of view, you would see than the Fairness Doctrine will hurt the left far more than the right.
This past election, Obama received 35 times more coverage than McCain. A law might have leveled the playing field.
