Bozell: FCC Needs to Ensure 'Fairness Doctrine' Stays Dead
By Brent Bozell | August 23, 2011 | 15:15
Editor's Note: What follows is a statement Mr. Bozell released earlier today regarding the FCC's decision yesterday to remove the so-called Fairness Doctrine from the regulation books.
The FCC deserves a one-handed round of applause for this move. Years ago, striking the Censorship Doctrine – and that's exactly what the Fairness Doctrine was – would have actually meant something.
But since the FCC started playing with policies of ‘localism,’ ‘media diversity’ and a nebulous requirement to ‘serve the public interest,’ with yet another unelected and unconfirmed "Diversity Czar" to implement these proposed regulations, the spirit of the Censorship Doctrine has remained very much alive. The path to censor radio airwaves is being paved through the back door.
The threat of government control of media will not be dead until these concepts of localism and diversity representation in the media are dead. The fate of political free speech on radio airwaves lies in the balance, and shame on the FCC for not putting an end to ALL threats to free speech.
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Comments
Censorship, lefty style
Submitted by deadeyedan on Tue, 08/23/2011 - 4:45pm.
One would think that candidates across all political persuasions would welcome a thorough airing of important issues. Just check this out from late in the 2008 campaign:
http://www.nationalreview.com/media-blog/32766/stanley-kurtzs-fairness-d...
These guys are bent, BENT, on destroying the country.
Liberalism - government of the people by the theories and for the ideologists
Global warming - authoritarian, rather than authoritative, science
ClimateGate - the revelation that the pseudo-scientists at East Anglia University know just as much about the atmosphere as Harvard law professors know about the Constitution
Fairness?
Submitted by ruby2ssday on Tue, 08/23/2011 - 5:01pm.
The "Fairness Doctrine" has nothing to do with fairness. It is to protect the speech of radical minorities and overpower those who promote rational debate.
I don't think it's a dead
Submitted by Beukeboom on Tue, 08/23/2011 - 5:10pm.
I don't think it's a dead issue. It would not surprise me in the least to see liberals in power trying to "back door" the Fairness Doctrine (under whatever name they choose) into place.
The FCC will come back with something much more far-reaching
Submitted by Dave. on Tue, 08/23/2011 - 5:58pm.
...and sinister than the Fairness Doctrine was.
And they will quietly implement it overnight on a weekend when no one is looking.
-Dave
Beware. The seeming death of
Submitted by RogerCfromSD on Wed, 08/24/2011 - 12:45am.
Beware. The seeming death of the Fairness Doctrine may just be an attempt by the Left to dampen down the calls for defunding NPR and PBS.
... but the FCC should
Submitted by Rusty Shackleford on Wed, 08/24/2011 - 1:36am.
... but the FCC should continue to censor TV in the name of "saving the children: the oh so precious children" because they can't be exposed to the horrors of midnight airings of Robot Chicken on cable, right? It's bad for the government to decide what we can or cannot hear on the radio when it's the Fairness Doctrine, but it's OK for the government to decide what we can or cannot see when it comes to decency standards, right?
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Chris Matthews: The Joy Behar of MSNBC.
Bill Maher: The Joy Behar of HBO.
Paul Krugman: The Joy Behar of The New York Times.
Don't underestimate the Nanny State
Submitted by Boil It Down on Wed, 08/24/2011 - 6:47am.
Free speech is always under attack and vigilance can never be relaxed. Of course that vigilance must be multiplied with the threat of a tyrannical micro-managing government that believes they must insinuate themselves further into our lives.
Clearly, our current administration has given much more power to the FCC and operates outside the law with the so called unelected czars. -bidn-
Fairness Dead?
Submitted by Boray on Wed, 08/24/2011 - 11:06am.
You bet the back door is open. When I read that the "Fairness Doctrine" is gone, I knew something was up. Obama didn't hire Genekowski because he was Fair and Balanced. He's as much a socialist as the rest of the czars Obama snuck in through yet other back doors. They are all slimemold.
FAIRNESS DOCTRINE!!
Submitted by STANISZ on Wed, 08/24/2011 - 12:38pm.
How nice the wolves blindside the conservaytive media again. From what i have seen since all this hype started is that if it was passed it would affect the left more than the right. On the right it would only cut into commercial overflow, especially hungry limbo. On the left, MSNBC,npr,cbs, nbc, abc and now the rev., who was trying to have it reinststed until he got some of the cash.
Restoring the 1st Amendment
Submitted by BenDCrossed on Wed, 10/19/2011 - 1:26am.
What is the Constitutional basis for making political coordination a crime? Does a candidate for office have the responsibility or authority to tell a citizen he cannot simultaneously put out campaign materials from the candidate and a grass roots organization that supports the candidate? Where in the Constitution does participating in politics require a candidate or citizen to give up 1st Amendment freedoms of assembly and association?
The 1st Amendment does not guarantee our freedoms; it only denies Congress the authority to write laws that abridge them. Only Congress can violate the 1st Amendment and the Federal Campaign Act and the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act do. These laws abridge freedoms of speech, press by limiting how much money individual citizens and citizens groups can donate to their candidates and issues, and they abridge freedom of assembly by declaring it a crime for candidates, political parties and grass roots organizations to coordinate their advertising campaigns.
Americans who are for campaign reform say corporations are not people and new laws are necessary to restrict corporate influence on elections. But Commercial media are special interests and dependent on the advertising dollars of other special interests.
Campaign laws that regulate political communications by citizens and citizens groups and exempt newspapers and broadcasters do not level the playing field or protect citizens. When grass roots can spend unlimited soft money challengers are more likely to win.
Instead campaign laws give corporations a megaphone and muzzle grassroots communications. If freedom of religion was defined using the same logic campaign reforms use to define a free press only the church or synagogue "as an institution" would enjoy freedom of religion, not its parishioners.
Freedoms of speech, press and assembly are the unalienable rights of flesh and blood people and not corporations. Newspapers have the right to publish because they employee people and not the other way around.
Call your Congressman and Senators and demand the press exemption be extended to all citizens and citizens groups that wish to participate in our Republic!