IGM Fairness Doctrine

Inter-Galactic Memo
To: All Personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt, Special adjunct-liaison-senior assistant to Crypto-Editorial Factions of the Conservative Think-Tank, “Founders Party”.
Re: The Fairness Doctrine


I’m sure we are all familiar with the “Fairness Doctrine”, a policy of the FCC introduced in 1949. (The year I was born, not coincidently). As originally conceived, the Doctrine was set up to require broadcasters to devote some of their airtime to discussing “controversial matters of public interest” and to “airing contrasting views regarding those matters”. Without going into hours of mind-numbing details only Mr. Isle (or my son) could appreciate, suffice it to say that the Doctrine has enjoyed various levels of interest, interpretation, and enforcement over the years. There have been a few lawsuits, most of them silly, citing the doctrine, but by and large, the FCC has ignored its own policy because it was voluntarily followed by most broadcasters, without the need for rigorous enforcement. On the other hand, the courts have warned on several occasions, that if the Doctrine ever showed signs of limiting or stifling free speech, they would not hesitate to do away with it.

The Court warned that if the doctrine ever restrained speech, then its constitutionality should be reconsidered.

The Doctrine carried less and less relevance over the years, as technology changed and other sources of information and opinions came on-line. (The internet, bloggers, non-traditional news agencies such as Canada’s “Naked News”, etc.)
Eventually, it was revoked in increments, and finally altogether, by the Reagan Administration. This revocation wasn’t even a blip on the political radar at the time, but recently, the Fairness Doctrine is rearing it’s outdated head again as a sorely-needed leveling agent championed by several prominent Democrats, of a, shall we say ‘liberal’ bent?
The recent upsurge in interest by such stalwarts of liberty as Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senator Jeff Bingham (Dem, NM), Richard Durbin (Dem, Il), and Senator Debbie Stabenow (Dem. MI) bears an interesting resemblance to Joe McCarthy of the infamous “Red-Baiting” hearings. The transparent nature of this call for a renewed Doctrine is clearly designed to silence or at least weaken, the very popular and successful wave of conservative talk-shows across the nation. It should be mentioned that, in comparison to the top five or six radio talk shows whose formats are geared toward political and cultural topics, there are no successful shows with liberal content. None. This is not to say that people aren’t trying. Air America is the liberal showcase network, starring, among others, the fearless Al Franken, author of such best sellers as Rush Limbaugh is a Big Idiot and other observations, and Lies and the Lying Liars who tell Them: A Fair and Balanced look at the Right. Granted, Al has a flair for book titles, and is a great comic writer, and skit actor. He made a name for himself on SNL, where he was able to take advantage of his particular vocal tone and inflection, which in a comedy skit was funny, but as a radio talk-show host and political candidate is like having to listen to a thousand fingernails being pulled mercilessly down an ancient blackboard for hours at a time. I mean, have you listened to this guy? He should have been recruited as an interrogator at Gitmo. Except that would have constituted torture.
George Soros has injected millions of dollars into Air America, but not even he could save it. No one listened. There are lots of liberal talk shows out there, if you have a radio powerful enough to pull them in, but they are hard to find otherwise. Why do you suppose that is?
As some of you probably know, radio shows, even talk-shows, are designed and aired as profit-making enterprises. They sell time and commercials to businesses, who then advertise on the show, paying large amounts of money for the privilege. Naturally, these private-sector, blood-sucking profit-hungry outfits like to advertise on shows with large audiences. The more people listening, the more likely a few of them are to buy soap, as it were. The liberal shows are having a hard time selling soap. The conservative shows are selling so much soap the entire country is floating away on right-wing bubbles.
And this is why the Democrats are crying to bring back the Fairness Doctrine. Not because they are interested in fairness, or equality, or equal time for all viewpoints (which the fairness doctrine was never intended to address), but because they are angry that the people of this country are so ignorant they would rather listen to Rush and Sean and Glenn and Laura, and Tammy and Mike and the Savage Nation than they would Al Franken or any other liberal—even one who sounds like an actual human being. How dare they! (We).
The new policy would require equal time for opposing viewpoints, which , as mentioned previously, the original Doctrine was never intended to do. It is a straight-forward attempt to stifle the political right, and nothing more. Which is fine, if that’s your thing. What it would do in practice however, is destroy the talk-show format and drive it off the air. You can’t force people to listen to opposing viewpoints, even if you make it available . . . even if you make it mandatory. Advertisers will not pay for shows that have no audience. Air America (Al Franken) has been subsidized from the moment of its inception because they could not generate an income stream the traditional way. And still can’t. It’s kind of like a private-sector experiment in Public Radio, which by the way, doesn’t exist. (I mean Public Radio as a concept. Call me, I’ll explain.) I like Public Radio. Especially Car Talk. And All Things Considered and Market Talk and Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me. But I don’t give them any money because I don’t believe in subsidizing things that should be able to generate their own income.
I digress. The reason Rush Limbaugh is number one and makes millions of dollars a year, is the same reason Jerry Springer was successful—because people watched (listen). The format is not the same, and the content is not even similar, but the bottom line is—money. People like his show, they listen to it. If the government insists on going through the sham of “equal time” and force Rush or anyone else to devote half their air-time to liberal pundits who, famously, have no sense of humor and don’t get irony, then one of two things will happen. One, Rush (or Glenn or Sean) will simply close down the show and retire, which is what this entire shell-game is about, or Two, they will ignore the mandate, keep the format which works and brings in incredible profits, and let the whiners take their case to the courts where such suits are likely to fail because of Second Amendment considerations. Personally, I’m betting they will force the issue and ignore any such policy. No one has to listen to a show they don’t like. It isn’t Rush’s fault that liberals can’t stay on the air with their ever-so-precious message. And it isn’t about truth or facts or anything like that. Besides, how would such a policy deal with bloggers and similar internet sites? Is the Democratic Congress going to monitor every one of the ten-gazillion bloggers and demand equal time? What about talk-shows that don’t offer political content? How will they police people like Art Bell, and George Noory, who talk[ed] about anything, from UFO’s to ghosts, to Kirlian photography to Atlantis? What about Gordene Mackenzie and Nancy Nangeroni, who have the only radio show in America devoted solely to transsexual and transgender issues? How is the left going to respond to the demand for equal time for the religious right on that show?
This new iteration of the Fairness Doctrine is nothing more than a gag being placed over the mouths of a few people by other people who don’t like what they’re saying and especially don’t like how many people are listening. It’s a bad idea whose time is long gone. If the liberals are serious about the second amendment (as they very publically claim to be) they will find an effective way to get their own message out, not try to silence the other guys.