In Search of Fairness
I will be away on Friday -- Pastor Doug and Michael Shecora from KSTT 101.3 will cover for me. And Tom and I will be off next Wednesday for the 4th. Tom is gearing up for his annual family vacation and will be gone the last two weeks of July.
We have been talking a lot about radio lately on the show, echoing similar conversations being held on Hannity and Rush, all aobut the so-called Fairness Doctrine. Many liberals, and even a conservative like Trent Lott, have expressed frustrations with talk radio and the conservative bent currently held. We quoted one study that claims that 91% of all talk radio is conservative. So John Kerry, Babaea Boxer, Hillary Clinton and Dianne Feinstein, among others, have been heard recently saying let's make things fair.
Briefly, the FCC had tight controls over radio and TV for the first 50 years of broadcasting. We had a Fairness Doctrine, upheld by the Supreme Court in Red Lion Broadcasting, that set the standard. Individual radio and TV stations had to provide balanced programming. If you had an anti-abortion segment, you had to have a pro abortion segment, etc. Individual stations had their licenses renewed every three years and had to prove that they had balanced programming.
That changed with Reagan. He deregulated in 1985-86 and the Fairness Doctrine was killed. Not by coincidence, a young talk radio host from Sacramento went national in 1988. His name was Rush Limbaugh.
So what should it be, folks? Do we need to the government to return and balance everything out or do we let the marketplace decide?
We have been talking a lot about radio lately on the show, echoing similar conversations being held on Hannity and Rush, all aobut the so-called Fairness Doctrine. Many liberals, and even a conservative like Trent Lott, have expressed frustrations with talk radio and the conservative bent currently held. We quoted one study that claims that 91% of all talk radio is conservative. So John Kerry, Babaea Boxer, Hillary Clinton and Dianne Feinstein, among others, have been heard recently saying let's make things fair.
Briefly, the FCC had tight controls over radio and TV for the first 50 years of broadcasting. We had a Fairness Doctrine, upheld by the Supreme Court in Red Lion Broadcasting, that set the standard. Individual radio and TV stations had to provide balanced programming. If you had an anti-abortion segment, you had to have a pro abortion segment, etc. Individual stations had their licenses renewed every three years and had to prove that they had balanced programming.
That changed with Reagan. He deregulated in 1985-86 and the Fairness Doctrine was killed. Not by coincidence, a young talk radio host from Sacramento went national in 1988. His name was Rush Limbaugh.
So what should it be, folks? Do we need to the government to return and balance everything out or do we let the marketplace decide?
posted by Dave Congalton at
6/28/2007 09:16:00 AM
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