Hold on to your hats, because Democrats are reclaiming the term "fair and balanced." The Democratically supported "Fairness Doctrine" is rumored to be reintroduced into Congress, two years after it last died in committee, and 21 years since Ronald Reagan vetoed it in 1987. Although originally a policy enforced by the FCC since 1945, it was dissolved forty years later, as the FCC was dissatisfied with its results. Ever since, it has been reintroduced in Congress in an effort to make the Fairness Doctrine legal and thus mandatory for the FCC to enforce. There is a large debate, truly, over what the Fairness Doctrine is and what it exactly entails, since it has been altered by Congress several times since it was first vetoed. The original policy, according to Steve Rendell on fair.org, " … required broadcasters to devote some of their airtime to discussing controversial matters of public interest, and to air contrasting views regarding those matters." Simply put, if a radio station or talk-show host took a stance on a matter of public interest, or publicly endorsed a presidential candidate, that same radio station would be obligated to present opposing viewpoints such as political commentators, editorials, etc. According to Rendell, the FCC did not attempt to enforce time constraints on either viewpoint, and the media was given "wide latitude" on how these contrasting viewpoints could be carried out. Failure to provide this balance would lead to the rescinding of that network's broadcast license. Though the government should logically have some say in how we behave - censoring hateful or inflammatory speech comes to mind - it is completely inappropriate to have any kind of governmental influence shaping our media or our public dialogue. Proponents of the Fairness Doctrine hold that it will inspire open dialogue on both sides of the political spectrum. But American Thinker columnist and former radio and TV journalist William Tate assures his readers that the opposite was true. Under the FCC's Fairness Doctrine, he claims it was "safer" for networks and station managers to shy away from controversial topics altogether, so pervasive was the fear that the Doctrine would be violated and their broadcasting licenses would be rescinded. Brian C. Anderson from The New York Post predicts that the cost in hiring lawyers and managing the complaints from regulators would also drive networks and talk-show hosts away from news and commentary altogether. It would be much less hassle, he argues, to ignore big issues or switch to a format free of anything political, such as sports. Clearly the Fairness Doctrine would inhibit free speech and be nearly impossible to regulate successfully. But ethically, should the government be involving itself in news or discourse at all? For the record, I consider programs such as Keith Olbermann's and Rush Limbaugh's public discourse. And CNN and FOX News, however blatantly biased, I consider news. Either way, the Fairness Doctrine would have unmerited influence on both. The inherent flaw of the Fairness Doctrine is that the FCC (and by extension, the government) will not only have a tighter grip on what is broadcasted, but it will also be interjecting its agenda into what we watch and how we form our opinions. There is no one institution so removed from human bias that it can undoubtedly say what is "balanced" and what is not. The FCC is no exception, and the U.S. government, as it swings from Republican to Democratic leadership, has its own interests to protect, its own agenda. It makes sense that a Democratic Congress may try to legislate "balance," considering a large majority of radio and talk show hosts are conservative. That said, is Big Brother really fair and balanced ... or is it just Left? Are Congress and the Democrats who support it really concerned with "balanced" news? Or are they more concerned with expanding their agenda to an unwilling public, all in the name of "fairness" and "balance"? We don't need a large institution to regulate its comparative opinion of what is "fair," especially when there is little success of it being regulated well at all. In order to truly protect the people from the government, people should feel free to rant against anything they want-- without having the government shove its agenda into their First Amendment rights.
Sarah Watts is the Discourse editor. swatts@luc.edu
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