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On November 5th of 2008 Chuck Schumer gave an interview in which his first words were not acknowledgment of the historic election that took place the day before; his first statement was to compare conservative talk radio to pornography and call for a reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine. Nancy Pelosi, Tom Harkin, Maurice Hinchey, Bill Clinton, Debbie Stabenow (to say nothing of her husband/conflict of interest), sore-loser Bill Press, David Axelrod's sudden non-committal, and many others have found the comfort with this new congressional power to say what they've really thought all along: the government, not the listener, has the sole right to determine what the public should hear. As a conservative talk radio host, as a woman who makes her living with the First Amendment, their attempts at censorship trouble me greatly.
So far proponents' biggest argument against the Fairness Doctrine has been that no plans exist to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine. We conservatives are all just a bunch of paranoid worriers. If only that were true.
Legislation was introduced as recently as 2007 when a Democratic effort to piggyback the Doctrine on the Financial Services and General Government appropriations bill was overwhelmingly defeated in the House. In 2005 Democratic Rep. Louise Slaughter and 23 co-sponsors introduced legislation brought forth H.R. 501, the Fairness and Accountability in Broadcasting Act; that same year fellow New York Democrat Rep. Maurice Hinchey and 16 co-sponsors introduced H.R. 3302 the Media Ownership Reform Act of 2005, the expressed written purpose of which was to "restore the Fairness Doctrine."
What was that about paranoia and crying wolf again?
Last week Federal Communications Commissioner Michael Copps' office met with advisers to House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman:
Waxman is also interested, say sources, in looking at how the Internet is being used for content and free speech purposes. "It's all about diversity in media," says a House Energy staffer, familiar with the meetings. "Does one radio station or one station group control four of the five most powerful outlets in one community? Do four stations in one region carry Rush Limbaugh, and nothing else during the same time slot? Does one heavily trafficked Internet site present one side of an issue and not link to sites that present alternative views? These are some of the questions the chairman is thinking about right now, and we are going to have an FCC that will finally have the people in place to answer them."
But wait - those who ridiculed conservatives for their worries over censorship reinstatement said that the Doctrine was unnecessary, due to the advent of the internet and cable. It leads us to the question of why Waxman and others are exploring ways to control both the airwaves and the internet. (I doubt the former commissioner would've entertained such a meeting.)
It's been said that the reason government sought to exercise control of the airwaves in the first place is because the FCC distributed licenses to those using public frequencies and in the interest of free speech wanted to ensure fair debate. Market-driven content is a result of fair debate. The American Heritage addresses the faulty allegation of decreasing spectrum availability:
Faulty Premise #1: The "scarce" amount of spectrum space requires oversight by federal regulators.
Reality: Although the spectrum is limited, the number of broadcasters in America has continuously increased.
Supporters of the fairness doctrine argue that because the airwaves are a scarce resource, they should be policed by federal bureaucrats to ensure that all viewpoints are heard. Yet, just because the spectrum within which broadcast frequencies are found has boundaries, it does not mean that there is a practical shortage of views being heard over the airwaves. When the fairness doctrine was first conceived, only 2,881 radio and 98 television stations existed. By 1960, there were 4,309 radio and 569 television stations. By 1989, these numbers grew to over 10,000 radio stations and close to 1,400 television stations. Likewise, the number of radios in use jumped from 85.2 million in 1950 to 527.4 million by 1988, and televisions in use went from 4 million to 175.5 million during that period. ("The Fairness Doctrine," National Association of Broadcasters, Backgrounder (1989).)
(Apropos of this, I was suspicious of the amount of federal money allocated
