The Fairness Doctrine won't solve our problems -- but it can foster needed debate

[Thaddeus]

The Fairness Doctrine won’t solve our problems — but it can foster needed debate
by @VWPickard in The Washington Post

The long-departed Fairness Doctrine has returned — at least in the minds of many who love or hate it. Arguably the most famous — and most maligned and misunderstood — media policy ever enacted in the U.S., its long, strange history is generally not well known. Yet it holds important implications for growing concerns about disinformation, ownership and control of our news and information systems, the rights of audiences and the future of our democracy.

[...]

Although many progressives today see the Fairness Doctrine as a high-water mark of enlightened media policy — and wishfully call for its return — most postwar reformers saw it as a consolation prize in place of stronger regulations that checked broadcasters’ political power and kept tighter restrictions on editorializing. Nonetheless, the Doctrine did incentivize broadcasters to be socially responsible and offer the public a range of opinion on important issues.

The Fairness Doctrine has often been conflated with the “equal time” rule for political candidates. But its purpose was more expansive—and more progressive— than simply requiring two sides to a debate. It mandated that broadcasters cover controversial issues of public importance in ways that presented opposing perspectives, operating under a view of free speech that privileged an audience’s rights to diverse voices and views over broadcasters’ narrower First Amendment protections.

[...]

Read the full article here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/02/04/fairness-doctrine-wont-solve-our-problems-it-can-foster-needed-debate/

[PirateRo]

1. It won't solve every problem but it certainly would have mitigated some of the worst crazy

I strongly support the fairness doctrine. There needs to be a point/counterpoint to foster discussion that pierces the bubble and shreds the poison spread by people intent in overthrowing the government. Even just a small amount of sunshine disperses the dark and identifies these people.

[appalachiablue]

2. The issue has been prominent for years, when is

something going to be done if it's not already too late? How much more...

[dware]

3. The Fairness Doctrine would have no effect on Faux News.

The FCC has no authority content over cable, satellite or the internet, so the FD would have no effect over Faux, Newsmax or any other RW site on those entities.

[SunSeeker]

5. That can be corrected. A 21st Cenury Fairness Doctrine could address all modern mass media.

As stated in the article:

Today the Fairness Doctrine is even less plausible as a ready-made solution for solving modern media problems. For starters, it pertained only to broadcast media, so extending it to cable outlets would require an entirely new regulatory framework. And it’s unfathomable to strictly apply it to social media platforms for numerous legal and practical reasons.

But summarily dismissing the Fairness Doctrine is also mistaken. It not only implicitly validates the libertarian contention that government has no legitimate role in regulating media markets to prevent social harms, it also obscures the broader historical context that shows how the Doctrine was a reasonable, if flawed, attempt to ensure media diversity. Early campaigners sought to prevent broadcasting from becoming saturated by reactionary voices that drove profits but hurt democracy. Their aim was to preempt biased and homogenized programming that typically occurs when corporate monopolies dominate highly commercialized media systems.

Arguments over the Fairness Doctrine often serve as proxy debates for larger issues, including the legitimacy of government’s affirmative duty to protect positive freedoms. But regulations that promote diversity aren’t tantamount to censorship. Other democratic nations — such as Britain with its impartiality rules — have long relied on similar content regulations without sliding into totalitarianism. All democracies must try to counteract forms of “market censorship” that afflict profit-driven systems, favoring some voices while filtering out others.

Today, like the 1940s, we must confront dangerous concentrations of unaccountable media power and attendant disinformation about public health, elections, insurrections and other life and death issues. Although imposing dubious regulatory corrections onto run-amok commercial systems are of limited utility, new public interest obligations for our digital age could be part of the solution. Ultimately, however, publicly owned and democratized alternatives to profit-driven outlets are a more systemic — and more permanent — fix.

[SunSeeker]

4. K & R

[AmyStrange]

6. Would the FD apply to sit-coms, shows like SNL, or the Late-Nite talk show monologues?

-

Or how about religious shows? Would an atheist get to give a counterview, and how about commercials and their ridiculous claims?
============