FCC Chairman Plans to Delete "Fairness Doctrine" From Federal Code

[OCGuy]

It has been obsolete and not in force for a while, but at least now we can get rid of it entirely. Limits on speech are never a good idea, even if you don't agree with the speech.



"FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has told Congress he supports striking the so-called 'fairness doctrine' and a couple of its corollaries from the Code of Federal Regulations.

That came in a letter responding to a request from Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Greg Walden (R- Ore.), the chairs of the House Energy & Commerce Committee and Communications Subcommittee, that the FCC officially deep-six the doctrine, pointing to President Obama's directive earlier this year to federal agencies to review outdated regs still on the books"

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/ar...irness_Doctrine_From_Code_of_Federal_Regs.php

 

[hal2kilo]

It has been obsolete and not in force for a while, but at least now we can get rid of it entirely. Limits on speech are never a good idea, even if you don't agree with the speech.



"FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has told Congress he supports striking the so-called 'fairness doctrine' and a couple of its corollaries from the Code of Federal Regulations.

That came in a letter responding to a request from Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Greg Walden (R- Ore.), the chairs of the House Energy & Commerce Committee and Communications Subcommittee, that the FCC officially deep-six the doctrine, pointing to President Obama's directive earlier this year to federal agencies to review outdated regs still on the books"

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/ar...irness_Doctrine_From_Code_of_Federal_Regs.php

What fairness doctrine? It was gutted during the Raygun administration. Thus we now have the shit that passes for news these days.

 

[ElFenix]

What fairness doctrine? It was gutted during the Raygun administration. Thus we now have the shit that passes for news these days.

the shit that passes for news is having to fill 24 hours of programming. there's simply not that much that goes on in the world to need 24 hours of programming across 3 or 4 networks.

 

[OCGuy]

What fairness doctrine? It was gutted during the Raygun administration. Thus we now have the shit that passes for news these days.

Huh? People have access to more news from more sources than ever before.

If you are a 24/7 cable-bot, that is your problem.

 

[wuliheron]

the shit that passes for news is having to fill 24 hours of programming. there's simply not that much that goes on in the world to need 24 hours of programming across 3 or 4 networks.

There are almost 7 billion people in the world or roughly 5 million people to cover for every minute of the day. If the damned reporters can't find something interesting happening among 5 million people then they aren't doing their jobs.

Fox and Rush calling themselves "news organizations" is like McDonald's advertising themselves as a health food restaurant. They can spout all the bullshit they want as far as I'm concerned, but we need better labeling standards that make it clear they are not to be taken seriously as news organizations.

 

[Lemon law]

Huh? People have access to more news from more sources than ever before.

If you are a 24/7 cable-bot, that is your problem.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sad to say, OCGuy is right. For a news junkie like me, I have more news sources than ever, but too many people are opting to only pay attention to false views.

 

[Fern]

There are almost 7 billion people in the world or roughly 5 million people to cover for every minute of the day. If the damned reporters can't find something interesting happening among 5 million people then they aren't doing their jobs.

Fox and Rush calling themselves "news organizations" is like McDonald's advertising themselves as a health food restaurant. They can spout all the bullshit they want as far as I'm concerned, but we need better labeling standards that make it clear they are not to be taken seriously as news organizations.

Do newspapers have editorial sections?

Do they have guest columnists?

Do they have letters to the editor?

Do they have actual news? Of course they do, but they also have the other things I listed above.

People like yourself need to understand that most cable news channel have some decent (straight up) news shows, but you guys need to stop confusing the editorial stuff (e.g., Hannity, Mathews etc) with news. The problem isn't labeling so much as people too obtuse to realize what's news vs editorial.

And those of us who were around before cable understand why the Fairness Doctrine WAS a good thing. For many years I got exactly 1 fuggin channel. sometimes 2. But it was that way for pretty much all of us who didn't live in the big cities. But now with 100's of channel even for those in rural areas it's simply not needed, at all.

Fern

 

[wuliheron]

Do newspapers have editorial sections?

Do they have guest columnists?

Do they have letters to the editor?

Do they have actual news? Of course they do, but they also have the other things I listed above.

People like yourself need to understand that most cable news channel have some decent (straight up) news shows, but you guys need to stop confusing the editorial stuff (e.g., Hannity, Mathews etc) with news. The problem isn't labeling so much as people too obtuse to realize what's news vs editorial.

And those of us who were around before cable understand why the Fairness Doctrine WAS a good thing. For many years I got exactly 1 fuggin channel. sometimes 2. But it was that way for pretty much all of us who didn't live in the big cities. But now with 100's of channel even for those in rural areas it's simply not needed, at all.

Fern

Does McDonald's sell salads? Yes, but it doesn't make them a health food restaurant. Standards have to be set somewhere or we'd all be eating sawdust and PCBs.

 

[MovingTarget]

Why are they bothering with this? The Fairness Doctrine has been effectively null for some time now. Deleting it from the federal code will have no effect. I support the return of the Fairness Doctrine, but there's no way in hell its coming back. Seems like they just want to dig it up and desecrate the corpse for good measure (and distraction).

 

[MovingTarget]

Do newspapers have editorial sections?

Do they have guest columnists?

Do they have letters to the editor?

Do they have actual news? Of course they do, but they also have the other things I listed above.

People like yourself need to understand that most cable news channel have some decent (straight up) news shows, but you guys need to stop confusing the editorial stuff (e.g., Hannity, Mathews etc) with news. The problem isn't labeling so much as people too obtuse to realize what's news vs editorial.

And those of us who were around before cable understand why the Fairness Doctrine WAS a good thing. For many years I got exactly 1 fuggin channel. sometimes 2. But it was that way for pretty much all of us who didn't live in the big cities. But now with 100's of channel even for those in rural areas it's simply not needed, at all.

Fern

People don't realize whats news and whats editorial because the line is often fuzzy. There needs to be a higher degree of separation and better delineation between the two. This should be part of a new FCC mandate as it is clearly in the public interest.

 

[WHAMPOM]

It has been obsolete and not in force for a while, but at least now we can get rid of it entirely. Limits on speech are never a good idea, even if you don't agree with the speech.



"FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has told Congress he supports striking the so-called 'fairness doctrine' and a couple of its corollaries from the Code of Federal Regulations.

That came in a letter responding to a request from Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Greg Walden (R- Ore.), the chairs of the House Energy & Commerce Committee and Communications Subcommittee, that the FCC officially deep-six the doctrine, pointing to President Obama's directive earlier this year to federal agencies to review outdated regs still on the books"

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/ar...irness_Doctrine_From_Code_of_Federal_Regs.php

Encouraging opposing views limits free speech? WOW!!! Tellers of the "BIG Lie" can not be exposed? Alright got you now!

 

[matt0611]

Encouraging opposing views limits free speech? WOW!!! Tellers of the "BIG Lie" can not be exposed? Alright got you now!

"encouraging opposing views" ?
How the hell do you even enforce that? Its so damn vague.
Theres plenty of media out there for people to find all the viewpoints they want.

The government shouldn't be involved in this crap at all.
Wipe this garbage from the books, please. By all means.

 

[PeshakJang]

Mandating opposing views limits free speech.

Fixed that for you, dumb ass.

 

[dmcowen674]

Fox and Rush calling themselves "news organizations" is like McDonald's advertising themselves as a health food restaurant.

They can spout all the bullshit they want as far as I'm concerned, but we need better labeling standards that make it clear they are not to be taken seriously as news organizations.

This was covered by a Supreme Court decision.

Fox and Rush are not News Organizations, they are Entertainment Organizations calling themselves News Organizations and that is OK as it is covered under Free Speech.

 

[Bowfinger]

"encouraging opposing views" ?
How the hell do you even enforce that? Its so damn vague.

Yet it worked well for very many years.

Theres plenty of media out there for people to find all the viewpoints they want. ...

That works both ways. Given that there are so many media options out there, special interests should have no problem finding ways to spread their messages. They are not entitled to use a scarce public resource like broadcast airwaves.

That's the crux of the issue. Broadcast spectrum is, in fact, a scarce, shared resource. Rather than taking a free-for-all approach (he with the strongest transmitter wins), society recognizes the public interest is best served by having the government manage these resources.

The government therefore issues licenses to use portions of this public resource. In the case of commercial broadcast spectrum, these licenses are exclusive within a geographic area. In return for giving commercial interests these exclusive licenses, it is perfectly reasonable for the government to impose restrictions that serve the overall public interest. Those who don't like the restrictions are perfectly free to choose alternate media. Nobody is forcing anyone to use the public airwaves.

Those who oppose the Fairness Doctrine want to have their cake and eat it too. They feel entitled to the benefits of using the public airwaves, usually at a profit, yet are outraged that this privilege might come with strings attached. It is an irrational and unreasonable expectation.

 

[ProfJohn]

Bow,

As of 2005 there were 13,814 radio station in the US.
And only 1745 TV stations.

Seems to me that we should be more concerned with applying the Fairness doctrine to TV than radio.

And I am not sure I would call 13,000 scarce.

 

[ProfJohn]

btw Rush is on about 600 radio stations, that leaves 13,000 others to offer balance.

 

[Bowfinger]

Bow,

As of 2005 there were 13,814 radio station in the US.
And only 1745 TV stations.

Seems to me that we should be more concerned with applying the Fairness doctrine to TV than radio.

And I am not sure I would call 13,000 scarce.

I believe it should apply to both broadcast TV and radio. When you spread 14K stations across 50 states (and realize many of them are relatively low power local stations), broadcast airwaves are indeed a scarce resource.

 

[wuliheron]

This was covered by a Supreme Court decision.

Fox and Rush are not News Organizations, they are Entertainment Organizations calling themselves News Organizations and that is OK as it is covered under Free Speech.

You mean the Florida supreme court. That whole state should be on serious anti-psychotic drugs.

Free speech my ass. You can't yell fire in a crowded theater and it should be illegal to present entertainment as if it were real news. I'm just waiting for Fox to have a nice fat class action suit against them for fraud and reckless endangerment.

 

[finglobes]

Obama admin never intended to use Fairness Doctrine. Their preferred strategy is to use "diversity" to cripple talk radio. Obama appointed Marl Lloyd as diversity czar because he wrote a book about how to "fix" the "market imbalance" that allows conservative success on talk radio.


Lloyd's plan is typical and similar to how ACORN and other groups got power over banks. Broadcasters would need to have their licenses reviews by local committees to make sure they were showing "diversity" of programming even if such programming was not profitable.


Not only could these groups hold up a broadcasting license but they could issue enormous fines. The fines would be so large its thought radio stations wouldn't even risk them and would change formats since liberal talk radio already proved to be a bust (which Obama crew blames on the market imbalance).


Tellingly - Lloyd was caught on video praising Hugo Chavez for his "democratic revolution" ans his seizure of radio stations

New FCC 'Chief Diversity Officer' Co-Wrote Liberal Group's 'Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio'



Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/seton-...e-liberal-groups-structural-imb#ixzz1Of0gVq00​

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/seton-...fficer-co-wrote-liberal-groups-structural-imb​

 

[Brigandier]

There are almost 7 billion people in the world or roughly 5 million people to cover for every minute of the day. If the damned reporters can't find something interesting happening among 5 million people then they aren't doing their jobs.

Fox and Rush calling themselves "news organizations" is like McDonald's advertising themselves as a health food restaurant. They can spout all the bullshit they want as far as I'm concerned, but we need better labeling standards that make it clear they are not to be taken seriously as news organizations.

/this

There is more than enough news and happenings to fill 24 hours, but it doesn't happen. The real 24 hour news cycle is like 19 with reruns, and if there's enough for 24 hours, there's enough for 19.

I have to look online to actually figure out the news for the world during each day.

Hell, combine Us news and British news(BBC) and you got the stories.

The problem isn't having enough news, it's having marketable news. If our news needs to be marketable, what does that say about society?

 

[Craig234]

It's about one thing - the wealthy interests monopolizing the speech.

The fairness doctrine - lied about pretty much every time I see the right discuss it - is one small bit of protecting democracy by giving the less powerful some bit of access.

Money buys speech, speech influences opinion, opinion affects policy, policy affects money.

When people think of '1984', they miss the fact the way it happens here, rather than the old communist approach, is this money control. Money buys opinion, destroys democracy.

 

[Brigandier]

It's about one thing - the wealthy interests monopolizing the speech.

The fairness doctrine - lied about pretty much every time I see the right discuss it - is one small bit of protecting democracy by giving the less powerful some bit of access.

Money buys speech, speech influences opinion, opinion affects policy, policy affects money.

When people think of '1984', they miss the fact the way it happens here, rather than the old communist approach, is this money control. Money buys opinion, destroys democracy.

They don't realize it because they are distracted. 1984 shows that he who controls money and production controls the world. The lesson they take from 1984 is that government is bad, and will ruin you, ignoring that entrenched assets, those that make a percentage of all productivity really run the show. It's easier to be afraid of the bogey man than it is to be afraid of a smiley glad hand that wants what you have, while having multiples more than you.

 

[airdata]

, pointing to President Obama's directive earlier this year to federal agencies to review outdated regs still on the books"

So this means they are going to end marijuana prohibition? Nice.

 

[Brigandier]

So this means they are going to end marijuana prohibition? Nice.

NO. Do you realize how much property can be confiscated on a pot charge? Got it in your car? Just bought a half? That's the po-po's.

Not to mention they don't have any hard records on "destruction" protocols or what has been destroyed.