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In reply to the discussion: Bring back the fairness doctrine [View all]melm00se
(5,084 posts)back in the hey day of the Fairness Doctrine (1960's to early 1980's), the electronic media landscape looked this this:
- The vast majority of television markets were ABC, NBC and CBS (and maybe PBS) only.
- The AM radio spectrum was on the decline due to the superior audio fidelity of FM.
- Despite this, the majority of radio outlets until the 1980's were music oriented which provided non-local network news (if they provided any news at all).
- Most stations discharged their "public service" programming requirement(s) through a series of mind numbing shows on Sunday mornings (most of which were religious in nature).
these factors, essentially, limited the audience to 3 (or 4) TV stations and an extremely limited number of news broadcasts over the radio. So, at this point in time, having Fairness Doctrine requirements made a certain amount of sense but they were not without consequences.
Many stations (mine included which catered to an audience that was later to become a prime all news demographic in later years) studiously avoided any kind of reporting that would trigger Fairness Doctrine requirements as the monitoring and documenting was time consuming and expensive.
Fast forward to today.
The electronic media landscape has never been broader:
Most TV markets have access to at least a dozen news outlets:
CNN
- CNN
- CNN HLN
FOX
MSNBC
RT America
BBC
CNBC
Bloomberg
FBC
ABC
CBS
NBC
Then when you factor in the internet: Traditional media outlets on the web, international (non-broadcast) sources (something the average person had zero access to in the 1980s), streaming services etc etc etc. The breadth of perspectives have made the need of Fairness Doctrine protections an unnecessary set of regulations.
In fact, in today's political environment a reconstituted Fairness Doctrine could have an incredibly chilling effect on free speech. Just watching some of the commentary here, I can quite easily see folks with stop watches, check lists and the FCC's Fairness Doctrine complaint form bookmarked and pre-prepared waiting with baited breath for their most hated media outlet(s) to stray from the Fair Doctrine path triggering an immediate flood of complaints which will then be forwarded to the "offending" outlets who will have to investigate and respond. Those investigations and responses will take time, effort and more importantly money.
It is not unreasonable to assume that these regulations will drive the affected outlets to take the path of least financial impact which, in my experience, would be to avoid controversial topics entirely, avoid opinion pieces and just report the facts with no analysis.
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