My representative in Congress speaks out against Freedom of the Press. Well, unless you consider a federal mandate that all broadcast media (including broadcasts over privately-owned networks) give equal time to their political opponents to be consistant with freedom of the press.
Blogging and print media appear to be safe for the moment, but I’m having difficulty thinking of a legal or moral principle which would permit content-based regulation of cable and satellite programming but not internet and print.
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Well, at least the old bitty is going for broke – cable and satellite, too! Â Nevermind that those mediums do not use the PUBLICÂ airwaves. Â But, hell, let’s mandate what you can put over private, pay for play media too.
There may be an argument (one I presume I wouldn’t agree with) that a fairness doctrine is consistent with free speech and free press, so long as it’s confined to government-provided channels such as over-the-air TV and radio. Â But, requiring the same of privately controlled satellite and TV providers is just ridiculous. Â Hopefully even if such a law were passed it would be swiftly overturned by the judiciary.
There may be an argument (one I presume I wouldn’t agree with) that a fairness doctrine is consistent with free speech and free press, so long as it’s confined to government-provided channels such as over-the-air TV and radio
Since when were over the air TV and radio "government provided" channels? Government regulated, yes.Â
Using that logic, any protest on/in any government provided space (streets, government buildings, schools, etc…) would be required to present both sides to an argument.
TexasAg03’s last blog post..Big Moon
The current legal framework is that the government owns broadcast airspace and leases it to private broadcasters. I think that system was put in place specifically to allow government to regulate broadcasts via lease terms in ways that wouldn’t pass constitutional muster if they tried to do by law under the commerce clause.
The amazing part for me is reading the comments.
Both conservatives and liberals claim that the other has a choke hold on some types of media outlets.
I, personally, find it interesting to switch between NPR and a christian legal action station I found. While the FD might save me a few clicks, it would all but shut down many talk-radio stations. The FD was removed, if I recall from a long-ago government class, because there was so much competition already that it was no longer necessary. If you only want to listen to people who agree with you and find out more about issues that you care about, that’s your choice. Having every NPR story about gay pride infested with some Christian pundit proclaiming that all gays are going to hell would be annoying. Christians would find it just as annoying when a biologist interrupts discussion of their prayer-in-schools bill with an in-depth talk on evolution.
The problem is the question of what is political speech and who gets to decide that. When NBC News decides to call Iraq a civil war, do they have to invite people to disagree on the air?
There’s also the question of how diverse "fairness" should be. If they show on NASA and the Moon landing, do they have to invite on people who say the Moon landing was faked? What about people who say the moon is made of green cheese?
Some arguments have three, four, or a million sides. It’s just unworkable.
Anyways, the government should never tell any private entity what sort of political speech it must or must not engage in. That’s an egregious violation of our freedom of speech.
Also, the government should not be providing any sort of funding for news or analysis, for the same reason they shouldn’t be funding a state church: it violates their neutrality. NPR should be shut down immediately.
I was with you right up until "shut down". NPR actually has good reporting and a substantial listener base, and I expect they could thrive as a private nonprofit without goverment support. Only about 2% of their budget comes from government grants, and their income currently exceeds their expenses by more than 10%.
Regulation of broadcast content was necessary in the early days of radio and television for a wide variety of reasons. First, someone had to control who could use which frequencies, otherwise broadcasters would be stepping on each other’s toes, vandals could set up jamming on certain frequencies, etc.
But this meant you had to have some way to lease or license the airwaves. Then the worry became that if large corporate entities started to gobble up the airwaves, they could control the flow of information themselves and thus come to control much of the country. So there were rules on how many stations a single entity could own, and, because these media moguls would be powerful, they had to be prevented from dominating a political issue to their own favor. Thus the Fairness Doctrine, which said that you could make whatever political point you wanted, but you had to allow dissenting views on.
This is all basically unnecessary now, if you ask me. You might still be able to make a case for it on the radio–a weak one, but you could make it. After all, the FM band is pretty well staked out without a lot of players. Especially FM–there’s room for lots more AM transmissions but no one seems to want them. In most of the country the AM frequencies are pretty empty.
Still, it’s hard not to see this for what it really is: an attempt to silence right wing talk radio. And frankly, Republicans ought to be praying that President Obama and the Democratic Leadership get behind this thing–it would give them the fight of their lives, almost certainly wouldn’t stand up in court, and would cause millions to flock to the right’s defense. Rush’s ratings would skyrocket to the highest they’ve ever been.
For all these reasons, I’m pretty sure this Fairness Doctrine will never rise further than a few in Congress making noises about it.
This is one of those issues that no one actually thinks is seriously on anyone’s radar in reality, but which certain fundraising groups and professional screamers find easy suckers to get all outraged about.
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Regardless of whether this is likely to pass or not, I want people to be aware of who is pushing to poke holes in the first amendment. Same general principle as with the perennial efforts of Charlie Rangel (D-NY), Jim McDermott (D-WA), and Pete Stark (D-CA)Â to reinstate the draft — it’s a terrible idea that’s not going to become law, but that doesn’t excuse its supporters.
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