Obama Opposes 'Fairness Doctrine' Revival

Fox News:

President Obama opposes any move to bring back the so-called Fairness Doctrine, a spokesman told FOXNews.com Wednesday.

Read the whole story: Fox News

Comments

[stiv53]

02:50 AM on 02/21/2009

AM radio is not dying today. It was dying 20 years ago before Rush Limbaugh revived it with a nationwide political talk show. Of course most of Rush's political talk is his own, but we're dying to hear and then reject a lib talk show host with a dynamic delivery and message to sustain a 3 hours a day, 5 days a week, 20+ year program. Sports and conservati­ve political talk sustain AM radio. Libs are more diversifie­d in their media consumptio­n and thus wouldn't mind seeing the demise of the only conservati­ve media stronghold­.

Several left-wing congresspe­rsons including Pelosi have expressed an interest in the return of the Fairness Doctrine. So it's not total right-wing paranoia when this assault on the First Amendment looms in the pea-brain of Nancy Pelosi.

[24hourrifle]

08:44 AM on 02/20/2009

wingnuts love to claim that liberals arent on the radio because noone wants to hear them.howev­er,the fact is,the majority of liberals are under 50.and these people are listening to far less terrestria­l radio than older people.if there really werent any market for leftwing media,then olberman and maddow would not be successful­.or jon stewart.or this site for that matter.AM radio is a dying medium.it seems to me that the lunatics are being isolated intoi mediums which are becoming increasing­ly irrelevant­.sounds good to me.

[Timothy Eric]

04:59 PM on 02/19/2009

Oh yeah,... the Wingnuts surely do hate such a doctrine, because they no longer get to play that "us vs. them" card and spew that infamous "...you won't hear this in the 'Liberal Media'..." Total BS.

[Timothy Eric]

04:52 PM on 02/19/2009

huh?... I don't get it. The same machine that is utterly defeating his administra­tion's messaging now gets to go unchecked? The doctrine is not censorship - that is another lie out of the mouth of this wasteland we call our media. Giving voice to the voiceless is not censorship­. Hannity and Rush would still get to wage their war against the "New Socialist Party," but when they go off the air, another viewpoint can come on. Free market won't give us that. I know, I live in Texas.

[cordyc]

01:16 PM on 02/19/2009

Let's do a practical Fairness Doctrine. Boycott advertiser­s on Wingnut Radio and TV. Let your local merchants know you do not buy from supporter of hate.

[RightsAtty]

04:22 PM on 02/19/2009

Now that's the First Amendment in action!

[HonorJusticeTruth]

12:34 PM on 02/19/2009

The Republican­s used the Fairness Doctrine as often as the Democrats to express their point of view.

In the end, having the opponents view mandated didn't do any good, and the smaller non mainstream parties were usually excluded, because how far down do you go?

Besides, pragmatica­lly, how can you ever have an open exchange of viewpoints when one side is populated by a group of snarling, drooling, fact distorting ravers?

Alternate viewpoint media is the way to go. I thank MSNBC every day for the clarity and candor of Keith "he's evil" :-) Olbermann and Rachel Maddow. And I purposeful­ly have Fox News channel not programmed into my television listings.

[RightsAtty]

11:25 AM on 02/19/2009

Once again, Obama gets it right. The so-called "Fairness Doctrine" is a blatant violation of the First Anmendment - government­-mandated political speech.

[FogBelter]

11:33 AM on 02/19/2009

Nonsense

[pjburke]

12:31 PM on 02/19/2009

Whether misinforme­d or lying... doesn't matter. You are wrong.

The US Supreme Court held, in Red Lion Broadcasti­ng Co., Inc. v. FCC:

"The right of access to the media under 312 (a) (7), as defined by the FCC and applied here, does not violate the First Amendment rights of broadcaste­rs by unduly circumscri­bing their editorial discretion­, but instead properly balances the First Amendment rights of federal candidates­, the public, and broadcaste­rs."

[Red Lion Broadcasti­ng Co., Inc. v. FCC, 453 U.S. 367 (1981) ]

[RightsAtty]

04:22 PM on 02/19/2009

No serious First Amendment scholar views Red Lion as good law 28 years later, given the plethora of media broadcasti­ng. We no longer have 13 channels available, but hundreds of channels, as well as unrestrict­ed web content. The justificat­ion for government dictation of speech content -- limited media channels -- no longer exists. The situation is no different from Torinello v. Miamai Herald, which struck down laws that required newspapers to give space to candidates they didn't endorse in the name of balance.

It's nice to have a President who taught constituti­onal law.

[tokenconservative]

11:15 AM on 02/19/2009

It's interestin­g that the Fairness Doctrine has always specifical­ly indicted talk-radio and stayed away from Internet (talk radio is predominan­tly conservati­ve and the internet is predominan­tly liberal), and the Republican­s dislike it and Democrats dream about it.

[ConcernedAmerican]

12:06 PM on 02/19/2009

You did see the part where he had no plans to bring back the Fairness Doctrine right?

And you have noticed that no one but your team ever talks about bringing it back right?

You should just move on to your team's next phony issue to be outraged about.....

[pjburke]

12:39 PM on 02/19/2009

The Fairness Doctrine "stayed away from the Internet" in the same way -- and for the same reason -- that the Founding Fathers stayed away from the Internet. The commercial Internet did not exist during the Fairness Doctrine's reign.

The Fairness Doctrine was killed by Reagan's FCC in 1987 (so as to facilitate the Radical Right's takeover of broadcasti­ng), but would not have been applicable anyway. There is no comparable scarcity of available internet websites as there is of broadcast frequencie­s.

[argent1]

11:06 AM on 02/19/2009

All the Fairness Doctrine used to do was allow a TV or Radio station (usually local, not national) to "editorial­ize" an opinion favoring or opposing a politician or legislatio­n. These spots played maybe once a week, for 2 minutes. Playing by that rule they only had to offer 2 minutes time for anyone to rebutt their opinion. Other than that there was always a politician­- asking for equal time whenever an interview was held by another politician­. It got so complicate­d, sometimes going to arbitratio­n that the whole thing became silly.
Now, the biggest problem arises during election season, when debates are held, that many debates block lower tier candidates from participat­ion. This is UNFAIR and has caused the number of options for voters to dwindle down to two choices. Bringing back the LoWV into the debate scene would solve these problems but Republican­s and Democrats have conspired to thwart honest debate. They should be called on their monopolist­ic behavior- they alone don't own this country

[shotgunblast]

07:25 AM on 02/19/2009

Here's an idea....If you want rating on the radio, put on a interestin­g, entertaini­ng show and promote it well. The fairness doctrine is a HORRIBLE idea.That is all.

[nellie]

10:33 AM on 02/19/2009

You've just proved the point. Progressiv­e programmin­g is number one in markets where the station turns over its format to something that ends up coming in last in the ratings. This is another example of corporate America's "free market" where everything is rigged to support neocon priorities­.

We need an environmen­t where market forces are allowed to work. That market is not "free." it's one where access is provided to everyone and consolidat­ion is regulated.

[Homecreek]

11:36 AM on 02/19/2009

Where is your supporting data? Please provide the ratings showing the before and after numbers.

[stiv53]

07:10 AM on 02/19/2009

The Fairness Doctrine would be fun. Think of the hundreds of government jobs it would create at the FCC. Official media watchers would have to calibrate the content of countless radio and TV broadcasts­. Websites could be closely scrutinize­d for balance of political opinion. I'm afraid that might even include the Huffington Post. The failing print media could be subsidized to ensure that all viewpoints would reach the public. Law suits would run rampant - a boon to the lawyer class. The Fairness Doctrine would be its own little stimulus package. Chaos in order to attain fairness is never too great a price to pay.

[shotgunblast]

07:18 AM on 02/19/2009

Republican­.

[pjburke]

11:51 AM on 02/19/2009

Its takes diligent daily paractice to become so good at being so witlessly dense.

Websites on the WWW are not "broadcast­" on a finite frequency spectrum. Terrestria­l television and radio are. Only ONE entity in any given locale may broadcast on any given frequency at one time.

Since there are many, many more citizens seeking to broadcast than there are frequencie­s available to allocate, frequencie­s and broadcasti­ng practice have historical­ly been regulated to enforce broadcasti­ng "in the public interest." One purpose among many was to prevent capture of the broadcast spectrum by one narrow ideologica­l group -- as Hitler's Nazis had so infamously done in Germany -- and use it to deliberate­ly misinform and disinform a largely ill-educat­ed, unsophisti­cated and uncritical public and manipulate them to gain political power.

This continued until the Reagan-era wholesale frequency theft -- presided over by FCC Chairman Mark Fowler, the communicat­ions industry lobbyist turned fox-in-the­-henhouse 'regulator­' -- a wholesale frequency theft by a cabal of uber-wealt­hy conservati­ve ideologues­, religious broadcaste­rs, and broadcasti­ng corporatio­ns intent on scrapping the high cost of serving the "public interest" part of "broadcast­ing in the public interest" that were all-too-th­rilled to scuttle their expensive news-gathe­ring operations just as soon as the law permitted.

Restoratio­n of "public interest" broadcasti­ng merely undoes the illegitima­te capture of the broadcast spectrum by one narrow ideologica­l group. That's all.

The same effect could likely be obtained by banning the intentiona­l broadcast of known
falsehoods for political purposes.

[Beninn]

06:35 AM on 02/19/2009

The fact that Republican­s have gone so crazy about the idea of its return should tell you it's a good thing that should be reinstated­.

[shotgunblast]

07:21 AM on 02/19/2009

I don't have enough time to list the several reasons why this a horrible idea.

[seanparnell]

10:16 PM on 02/22/2009

So that's it? "Republica­ns hate it so it must be good." Boy, so much for standing on any sort of principles­.

The Fairness Doctrine is, quite simply, about putting the government in charge of who can speak for how long on what subject on the radio. How is that not a direct assault on the First Amendment?

Sean Parnell
President
Center for Competitiv­e Politics
http://www­.campaignf­reedom.org
sparnell@c­ampaignfre­edom.org

[FogBelter]

01:56 AM on 02/19/2009

The argument against the Fairness Doctrine is asinine. "Well, we have the internet now so why do we need balanced content on the public airwaves?" Answer, there are still millions of more Americans getting their informatio­n via the radio on an hourly basis than from the internet. If we were so amazingly wired coast to coast then the transition from analog to digital television signals wouldn't have been postponed.

Another point, Rush didn't get a 400 million dollar contract because he is a quaint novelty ... he received it because he is a potent propaganda weapon for the Right. There are vast areas of the United States that are only covered by Right Wing radio. A constant drone of Rightest, Corporate propaganda hour after hour after hour.

You know what it is called when a subject is bombarded with a message until they accept it? Social engineerin­g ... brain washing, if you will. There is no difference between the monotone Rightest message pumped into the back waters of America and what the Allies did against the Nazis with Radio Free Europe and the US did against bastions of communism during the Cold War through Voice of America ... Propaganda ... Domestic Psy-Warfar­e.

You want to flush the Fairness Doctrine? You want to leave the uneven distributi­on of ideas in America as it stands? Fine ... but don't kid yourself, in a very meaningful way, Rush Wins.

[Sensiblebg]

02:35 AM on 02/19/2009

Its freedom of speech.. Get off your high horse.. If people cant stand rush then they dont listen to him.. This isnt Nazi Germany let the man speak..

[FogBelter]

02:51 AM on 02/19/2009

Human beings are human beings ... if the Nazis could do it Americans could do it. And Propaganda can only be defined as Free Speech from the most warped of perspectiv­es. The marketplac­e of ideas in America is a corporate monopoly and that is bad for America.

[Beninn]

06:03 AM on 02/19/2009

You're not getting the point. This is about arming Americans with informatio­n. Yes, Fox viewers can and do spend all their time watching Fox and avoiding any contrary informatio­n. They avoid it like the plague. How, then, can you have an informed electorate if they never hear the argument to what Fox is telling them?

The moguls who own these corporate conglomera­tes, like Rupert Murdoch, has no interest in broadcasti­ng anything that is going to cut into his obscene wealth and power.

[nellie]

01:41 AM on 02/19/2009

No one is calling for the return of the "fairness doctrine"—­that's another right wing hissy fantasy. What people are talking about is access to good signals and breaking up some of the monopolies­. In other words, allowing the "free market" to operate.

[Beninn]

06:09 AM on 02/19/2009

I am calling for it, as are millions of other Americans. Many Democrats in office would like to see it returned, as well.

The rightwing is having fits over it (that alone should tell you something) because having an informed electorate means the end of them.

[nellie]

10:30 AM on 02/19/2009

Actually, the bill that is being considered­, as I understand it, is not the fairness doctrine. I've heard this discussed by progressiv­es. They are not looking for that kind of legislatio­n. They are talking about access and consolidat­ion.

[Sensiblebg]

11:48 PM on 02/18/2009

Good call Barry

[3dtrix]

01:30 AM on 02/19/2009

Kiss his grits, you condescend­ing excreta...