Ithaca’s (in)famous congressman Maurice Hinchey (D) has joined the ranks of Democrats who are setting their sights on restricting right-wing talk radio.
Hinchey said that he is in favor of reviving the “Fairness Doctrine,” which would require TV and radio outlets to give equal time to conservatives and liberals in their coverage of public affairs. The measure was repealed in 1987 and its revival is widely thought to target right-wing talk radio, which began to flourish in the 1990s.
Despite the obvious legal problem of this being an infringement of free speech, the growth of the blogosphere has also complicated any possible implementation of the fairness doctrine. The logical conclusion of this doctrine is that there would have to be an equal number of conservative/liberal blogs from each web provider. How could this possibly be implemented?
Some justification for the fairness doctrine comes for the limited amount of airspace available for broadcasters. Again, the development of the blogosphere sort of corrects this problem; because there is unlimited room for blogs, it is more difficult to make the case that the scarcity of media for expression justifies regulation.
Here is an article detailing the arguments against the fairness doctrine:
http://www.heritage.org/research/regulation/em368.cfm
I was unable to find any solid legal arguments/articles in favor of the fairness doctrine, but if anyone finds one, please share it.
Here’s Obama’s 2008 position on the doctrine:
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/114322-Obama_Does_Not_Support_Return_of_Fairness_Doctrine.php
There is something worse than the Fairness Doctrine that I’ve written about before we had the blog up. I’ll repost here 🙂