The Fairness Doctrine, assualt on the 1st Amendment

[03_SHOOTER]

Well, now that the Communists have total control of Congress, they've managed to gain control of the banks, at least some of the means of production, they're working toward controlling health care (including the introduction of the "Kill the elderly" legislation), and now they're going to be going after the airwaves.

Democrats Consider Reviving 'Fairness Doctrine' (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/02/12/dems-consider-reviving-fairness-doctrine/)
Democratic lawmakers are considering pushing to revive the Fairness Doctrine to help increase the number of liberal shows on the airwaves.

A political battle is brewing over control of the radio airwaves as Democrats consider pushing for the revival of the Fairness Doctrine, an FCC policy that requires broadcast stations to provide opposing views on controversial issues of public importance.

Democratic lawmakers who support the doctrine say it will help increase the number of liberal shows in a landscape dominated by conservative talk radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh.

"I absolutely think it's time to be bringing accountability to the airwaves," Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., told liberal radio host Bill Press last week. She said she expects hearings soon on reviving the policy, which was introduced in 1949 and abolished in 1987.

Stabenow's husband, Tom Athans, is and has been an executive at several liberal radio talk groups.

But Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe said radio programming should be based on what brings in listeners and advertisers.

"I can't think of anything worse than to have government in a position to dictate the content of information going over public radio," said Inhofe, a Republican. "The whole idea is that it has to be market driven. We have a lot of progressive or liberal radio shows but nobody listens to them and every time one tries to get on, they are not successful."

Inhofe and other critics believe those pushing to bring back the Fairness Doctrine -- nicknamed the Hush Rush Doctrine -- want to diminish the influence of Limbaugh and other conservative talk show hosts. Supporters insist that's not the case.

Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, told Press Wednesday that the Fairness Doctrine is needed not to remove any conservative voices, but to ensure that there are a few liberal shows on the air.

During the presidential campaign, a spokesman said Barack Obama did not favor reinstating the Fairness Doctrine. But his White House spokesman has since left the door open.

"I pledge to you to study up on the 'Fairness Doctrine' so that, one day, I might give you a more fulsome answer," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said.

Inhofe says Democrats and liberal advocacy groups aren't going to let the matter drop.

"They are committed to make this happen," he said. "We got to be ready."

Inhofe introduced a bill this year to prevent reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine, but he said he has not gotten a single Democrat to co-sponsor it.

FOX News' Molly Henneberg contributed to this report.

[TruBlu]

Cool, media censorship!!! Just to put it out there, the FCC are a bunch of Nazis in the first place. Now in conjunction with a blue agenda they will surly achieve their ultimate goal: strike down the First Amendment. And it's all a sham. The blue team seems to forget that they too have some wildly left wing hosts on their side of the line (ie: Chris Matthews and Ed Schultz). And have they not forgotten this past election year? The liberals owned the media. It was a liberal media frag-fest with the first black president, a hot Alaskan governor (don't lie), and a pretty screwed up situation in the Middle East. Not to mention the rise of a leader that matches that of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, only on a slightly smaller scale...

You know we could probably satisfy the liberals 'positive media' fix by simply doing some 'over the isle' deals like $500,000 dog parks in California to stimulate our economy...

[fjer]

Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, told Press Wednesday that the Fairness Doctrine is needed not to remove any conservative voices, but to ensure that there are a few liberal shows on the air.

This is my favorite claim; let's look at it in a mathematical way.
Let's define conservative radio as variable "c" and liberal radio as "l"
An equation for all radio with an ideological slant would be c+l=1 (conservative radio + liberal radio = 100% of stations), thus c=1-l so increase of liberal shows does mean decrease in conservative ones...

(I know this was all obvious; I was just bored.)

[TruBlu]

This is my favorite claim; let's look at it in a mathematical way.
Let's define conservative radio as variable "c" and liberal radio as "l"
An equation for all radio with an ideological slant would be c+l=1 (conservative radio + liberal radio = 100% of stations), thus c=1-l so increase of liberal shows does mean decrease in conservative ones...

(I know this was all obvious; I was just bored.)

LOL. Now lets take c times l then divide by the amount of i (independent) and if the answer is 2, we reach equilibrium! This is exactly like the economic situation with blue team right now also, just a whole lot of regulations that are unconstitutional and anti-American... It will be interesting to see what PBHO has to say about this, but of course he may already have when this came about: http://www.gruntsmilitary.com/board/showthread.php?t=1045.

[HairyEyeball]

Not to point out the nearsightedness in the views expressed, but 'the media' to which the ineptly yclept '(un)fairness doctrine' would apply - strictly in theory, of course - is hardly limited to 'talk radio': Were it implimented as preached, it would require television propaganda programs - er, 'news broadcasts' - to be similarly 'fair and balanced', as it would print 'journalism'...had the handful of 'pretend conservatives and sprinkling of 'real' ones still left in government the intestinal fortitude to demand the equity so preached. You and I both know that this is slightly less likely than Barack Hussein dispensing with Air Force One and flying by flapping his otherwise (apparently) non-functional auditory receptors.

[JohnP]

In Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, 395 U.S. 367 (1969), the U.S. Supreme Court upheld (by a vote of 8-0) the constitutionality of the Fairness Doctrine in a case of an on-air personal attack, in response to challenges that the doctrine violated the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The case began when journalist Fred J. Cook, after the publication of his Goldwater: Extremist of the Right, was the topic of discussion by Billy James Hargis on his daily Christian Crusade radio broadcast on WGCB in Red Lion, Pennsylvania. Mr. Cook sued arguing that the FCC’s fairness doctrine entitled him to free air time to respond to the personal attacks.
Although similar laws had been called unconstitutional when applied to the press, the Court cited a Senate report (S. Rep. No. 562, 86th Cong., 1st Sess., 8-9 [1959]) stating that radio stations could be regulated in this way because of the limited spectrum of the public airwaves. Writing for the Court, Justice Byron White declared:
A license permits broadcasting, but the licensee has no constitutional right to be the one who holds the license or to monopolize a radio frequency to the exclusion of his fellow citizens. There is nothing in the First Amendment which prevents the Government from requiring a licensee to share his frequency with others.... It is the right of the viewers and listeners, not the right of the broadcasters, which is paramount.
The Court warned that if the doctrine ever restrained speech, then its constitutionality should be reconsidered.
However, in the case of Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Tornillo, 418 U.S. 241 (1974), Chief Justice Warren Burger wrote (for a unanimous court), "Government-enforced right of access inescapably dampens the vigor and limits the variety of public debate." This decision differs from Red Lion v. FCC in that it applies to a newspaper, which, unlike a broadcaster, is unlicensed and can face a theoretically-unlimited number of competitors.
In 1984, the Supreme Court ruled that Congress could not forbid editorials by non-profit stations that received grants from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (FCC v. League of Women Voters of California, 468 U.S. 364 (1984)). The Court's 5-4 majority decision by William J. Brennan, Jr. stated that while many now considered that expanding sources of communication had made the Fairness Doctrine's limits unnecessary, "We are not prepared, however, to reconsider our longstanding approach without some signal from Congress or the FCC that technological developments have advanced so far that some revision of the system of broadcast regulation may be required." After noting that the FCC was considering repealing the Fairness Doctrine rules on editorials and personal attacks out of fear that those rules might be "chilling speech", the Court added, “Of course, the Commission may, in the exercise of its discretion, decide to modify or abandon these rules, and we express no view on the legality of either course. As we recognized in Red Lion, however, were it to be shown by the Commission that the fairness doctrine [has] the net effect or reducing rather than enhancing" speech, we would then be forced to reconsider the constitutional basis of our decision in that case.”

This is going to be interesting. How the DEMs are going to bend the constitution to fill their agenda.

[JohnP]

Well, now that the Communists have total control of Congress, they've managed to gain control of the banks, at least some of the means of production, they're working toward controlling health care (including the introduction of the "Kill the elderly" legislation), and now they're going to be going after the airwaves.

To support my esteemed colleague from North Carolina, I submit for your approval and perusal, recent legislative attempts to re-introduce this violation of our rights:

In the 110th Congress (January 2007 to January 2009), where Democrats held a majority of both Houses, no legislation to restore the Fairness Doctrine was introduced.

In 2007, Senator Norm Coleman (Republican of Minnesota) proposed an amendment to a defense appropriations bill that forbade the FCC from "using any funds to adopt a fairness rule." It was blocked, in part on grounds that "the amendment belonged in the Commerce Committee’s jurisdiction".

In the same year, the Broadcaster Freedom Act of 2007 was proposed in the Senate by Senators Coleman with 35 co-sponsors (S.1748) and John Thune (Republican of South Dakota) with 8 co-sponsors (S.1742) and in the House by Republican Representative Mike Pence of Indiana with 208 co-sponsors (H.R. 2905). It provided that the Commission shall not have the authority to prescribe any rule, regulation, policy, doctrine, standard, or other requirement that has the purpose or effect of reinstating or repromulgating (in whole or in part) the requirement that broadcasters present opposing viewpoints on controversial issues of public importance, commonly referred to as the `Fairness Doctrine', as repealed in General Fairness Doctrine Obligations of Broadcast Licensees, 50 Fed. Reg. 35418 (1985).

None of these measures came to the floor of either house.

[Buffa1oso1di3r]

Democratic lawmakers who support the doctrine say it will help increase the number of liberal shows in a landscape dominated by conservative talk radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh.

So, basically, the Democrats want radio to be dominated by them as well.

Seesh, more people watch Television than listen to Radio Talk Shows, and the Liberal's dominate Television.

Let's give a big hoorah to the Democrats on expanding their Imperialism.

[fjer]

So, basically, the Democrats want radio to be dominated by them as well.

Seesh, more people watch Television than listen to Radio Talk Shows, and the Liberal's dominate Television.

Let's give a big hoorah to the Democrats on expanding their Imperialism.

Not to get nit-picky here, but "imperialism" is the spreading of international influence and power through colonization. I'm can't think of a term that specifically describes an attempt by a party to gain nearly complete and invasive power off the top of my head, but this is certainly a hallmark of any totalitarian movement.

[HairyEyeball]

Try 'censorship' or 'prior restraint'. As bad as it may be when the liberals control the majority of media outlets and are out of power, the fact that they cannot tolerate dissent - or truth - when they control both the legislative and executive (and still, the majority of media outlets) says more about their corruption than their paranoia.

[Woody]

When liberals and consevatives both complain about media bias you know you have a fair media .
Imho you have to listen to both sides .

[03_SHOOTER]

When liberals and consevatives both complain about media bias you know you have a fair media .
Imho you have to listen to both sides .

I'm afraid you miss the point tim. Listening to both sides might be a "good idea", but the last time I checked nobody can compel someone to do so, which is exactly what the "fairness doctrine" is designed to do. The First Amendment may protect your right to say what you want to say (at least from governmental interference), but it does not say that anyone has to listen to you.

The fact is that "progressive" radio like Air America, with the exception of the very few liberal enclaves in major metropolitan areas (and the left coast), has been an abysmal failure everywhere that it's been tried, which is why they are now going to try to reintroduce the "fairness doctrine" in order to compel stations that operate on the public airwaves (cable TV and satellite radio are exempt) to give them "equal time" to express the views that nobody wanted to listen to when they were having to pay for the air time.

To put it in simpler terms, if a politician went out and obtained the permits, rented the space in the local auditorium, spent all the money on advertising to make a campaign speech and nobody came to hear her, would it be "fair" for her to be able to compel her opponent to give up some of his time in order to present her "opposing viewpoint", in that same auditorium a week later, when he had paid for the space and advertising for his rally, and had a packed house, just because nobody showed up to hear her?

It's the same thing. If nobody wants to listen to Al Franken on Air America (or any of the other whiny a$$ed little libtards on their 500 watt radio stations) and they get dropped or go bankrupt because nobody is listening to them, what's "fair" about compelling every radio station in America that carries Rush, Sean, Laura, or any of the successful personalities to give up their very expensive air time for some mouth breathing, drooling, skull full of mush libtard to come on and complain that he/she/it/whatever doesn't agree with them?