Bring Back the Fairness Doctrine Now, and Extend It to Cable and the Web!

For those of you who may have forgotten it once was a law of the land that federally licensed overtheair television and broadcast licensees had to present controversial issues of public importance in an quothonest equitable and balancedquot manner At least it had to be quothonest equitable and balancedquot in the eyes of the commissioners of the Federal Confusion CommissionThat was the law from 1949 until 1987 It was only somewhat weakened in 1969 by a Supreme Court challenge Red Lion Broadcasting Co v FCC The logic of the law involved the scarcity of broadcast licenses lots of newspapers magazines newsletters etc not so many airwaves for radio and DTVDon39t confuse it with the somewhat similar but very different Fairness Doctrine Equal Time rule that applies only to political candidatesAs time went on the Fairness Doctrine became ever more complex We39re talking DC here so what did you expect At any rate in 1974 the FCC said Congress had delegated the power to mandate a system of quotaccess either free or paid for persons or groups wishing to express a viewpoint on a controversial public issue However the FCC decided to take no action because broadcasters were quotvoluntarilyquot complying with the quotspiritquot of the doctrine So farOver the years more legal wrangling ensued and things got more confusing Attempts to make sense of quotcensorship or notquot kept escalating until Congress demanded the FCC explain what it actually had mandated via the socalled Fairness Doctrine The result was no surprise the abolishment of the unclear rules For more look hereSince then there39s been nothing but noise White papers speeches attempts to reintroduce have littered the year And the concept of quotfairnessquot or even one might say quotsanityquot keeps slipping further and further awaySo enough already ok Let39s band together in an effort to return civility to public discussion Let39s demand the return of the Fairness Doctrine applied equally to all forms of public speechRandom NotesDirecTV is said to be abandoning renewing Sunday Ticket amp8230 and as John Ourand of Sports Business News wrote there should be active bidding for the rights and it will probably reappear as a streaming serviceRetransmission consent keeps getting more expensive Comcast is bumping most subscribers 450month just to watch local quotfreequot overtheair broadcast TV For shame Save some money and buy an antenna if it39s possible to use one where you are We can39t so we39ve gone completely to streaming including our somewhat local signalsGreat column by Steve Effros last week in CableFAX Daily looking ahead to the Biden FCC and wait for it network neutrality and the packaging of signals with access costs like HBO Max with ATampampT delivery in a package Stay tuned it is certain to be interesting Get ready to hear from former FCC commissioners in more depth than any of us wantClick the social buttons above or below to share this content with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated writers

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Bring Back the Fairness Doctrine Now, and Extend It to Cable and the Web!

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Paul S. Maxwell

"About That with Carl Mayer": Involved Media Connected Audience Fall 2024 Report (Episode 5) - By Carl Mayer

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Bring Back the Fairness Doctrine Now, and Extend It to Cable and the Web!

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