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

[Thump553]

Time has passed the fairness doctrine by. What made a lot of sense before the rise of cable channels and the internet is really unnecessary surplusage now.

But in my area ALL radio stations (except for college ones and NPR) are owned and microprogrammed by megachains. Commercial radio is a pale shadow of what it was in the 60's and 70's. It's a sorry state of affairs for someone with a nine volt heart.

 

[wuliheron]

A perfect example of why the left really supports the fairness doctrine. Freedom of speech, as long as you agree. It's one of their core beliefs.

And I suppose if Rush Limbaugh supported keeping it illegal to yell fire in a crowded theater you'd call him a commie.

 

[Bowfinger]

A perfect example of why the left really supports the fairness doctrine. Freedom of speech, as long as you agree. It's one of their core beliefs.

Except that has absolutely nothing to do with the Fairness Doctrine. The Fairness Doctrine doesn't restrict anyone's right to lie their asses off (which should give you and the RNC great comfort). It just requires an opportunity for alternative views to be heard.

That's really why the right is so afraid of the Fairness Doctrine, IMO. They know their indoctrination works best when they are the only message heard, when there are no challenges to their lies. That's why it's so funny to see the usual suspects here accusing the left of trying to censor or suppress. It's a classic example of turning the truth around to smear one's opponents and keep them on the defensive. Only in the nutter world is "allowing multiple viewpoints" called censorship.

 

[Bowfinger]

On what basis should the fairness doctrine continue in today's media world?

From my perspective, you have that question backwards. There are all sorts of media options available for interests to spread their message. Broadcast spectrum is only one of them, and is a public resource. What is your basis for denying fair access to this public resource?

On what grounds or basis should the government dictate what political speech or information is provided and how?

Please learn to make honest arguments. The Fairness Doctrine does not dictate what political speech/information is provided, nor does it dictate how it is provided. Rest assured the RNC can continue to catapult their propaganda freely. All the Fairness Doctrine did was ensure alternative views have access too.

(and don't give me that FCC and federal government owns the airwave bullcrap, doesn't give them the right)

Of course it does. We, the People own those airwaves. We have delegated to the government the right to regulate them. Without this, the airwaves become unusable as everyone does their own thing, and he with the most powerful transmitter wins.

 

[Bowfinger]

Time has passed the fairness doctrine by. What made a lot of sense before the rise of cable channels and the internet is really unnecessary surplusage now. ...

I agree that's true for most Americans, but it's not true for all. Meanwhile, that same argument is exactly why the Fairness Doctrine does NOT present an undue burden and does NOT limit free speech. There are plenty of media options besides broadcast radio and TV available. Those who cannot abide by the Fairness Doctrine are perfectly free to chose other media.

 

[Bowfinger]

How is the radio spectrum a SCARCE public resource.

Heck, I live is a really small town (pop 20k) and we have about a half dozen AM radio stations with room for more.

Fern

That's a semantics issue. Feel free to call it a "limited" public resource (as Craig suggests), or a "finite" public resource. Whatever. The point remains that it is a public resource and therefore should be available to all fairly.

 

[OCGuy]

I agree that's true for most Americans, but it's not true for all. Meanwhile, that same argument is exactly why the Fairness Doctrine does NOT present an undue burden and does NOT limit free speech. There are plenty of media options besides broadcast radio and TV available. Those who cannot abide by the Fairness Doctrine are perfectly free to chose other media.

Not really, because there is no fairness doctrine. Great decision.

 

[Bowfinger]

Not really, because there is no fairness doctrine. Great decision.

Yes honey, that's exactly what we're discussing. Try to keep up.

 

[Zebo]

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.

People are free to turn this shit off and read whatever they want.

Not only that everyone has a different definition of fair, barring the unfairness of someone deciding, the market decides and I can't think of a better arbiter of ideas.

 

[Corn]

I receive my internet over the broadcast spectrum and my newspaper is delivered via the roadway system. These delivery methods are just as "limited or scarce" as the tv/radio broadcast spectrum. The fairness doctrine should also apply to those who use that method of delivery as well. It is in the public's interest that the dailykos and huffpo, amongst the rest, be required to present equal editorial content to conservative viewpoints as well. Don't be hypocrites lefties, demand the internet and newspapers also adhere to your revered fairness doctrine.

 

[fskimospy]

I receive my internet over the broadcast spectrum and my newspaper is delivered via the roadway system. These delivery methods are just as "limited or scarce" as the tv/radio broadcast spectrum.

The roadway system is in no way as limited as over the air broadcast spectrum.

 

[Zebo]

Except that has absolutely nothing to do with the Fairness Doctrine. The Fairness Doctrine doesn't restrict anyone's right to lie their asses off (which should give you and the RNC great comfort). It just requires an opportunity for alternative views to be heard.

That's really why the right is so afraid of the Fairness Doctrine, IMO. They know their indoctrination works best when they are the only message heard, when there are no challenges to their lies. That's why it's so funny to see the usual suspects here accusing the left of trying to censor or suppress. It's a classic example of turning the truth around to smear one's opponents and keep them on the defensive. Only in the nutter world is "allowing multiple viewpoints" called censorship.

There are infinite alternatives thus what left is really talking about with "fairness" is leftist alternative must be presented, patently unfair.

 

[Corn]

People are free to turn this shit off and read whatever they want.

Not only that everyone has a different definition of fair, barring the unfairness of someone deciding, the market decides and I can't think of a better arbiter of ideas.

Silly liberals apparently believe there can only be 2 differing opinions on any given political/editorial topic. Does the fairness doctrine only recognize a singlular conservative or liberal viewpoint? .....or will all differing viewpoints have to be heard to be considered "fair"?

 

[fskimospy]

Once again, I'm glad that it's gone for good now. Not that it hasn't been gone for years and years and years now, but finally the people who listen to too much Rush Limbaugh will need to find a new boogeyman to perpetuate their culture of victimhood. After all this time of the FAIRNESS DOCTRINE BEING RIGHT AROUND THE CORNER, dire warnings every time a Democrat was elected, finally a Democratic president's administration got rid of it completely out of a request due to simple disuse.

It made sense when there were only 3 stations, in those cases differing viewpoints could be legitimately crowded out. Nowadays if you can't find a viewpoint that suits yours, you aren't even trying to look.

 

[Corn]

The roadway system is in no way as limited as over the air broadcast spectrum.

The roadway system is much more scarce than the broadcast spectrum. You must live where there is never a traffic jam......

 

[fskimospy]

The roadway system is much more scarce than the broadcast spectrum. You must live where there is never a traffic jam......

I live in New York City. I know traffic jams. I will repeat, the roadway system is nowhere near as scarce as the broadcast spectrum. The roadway system can service thousands to millions of different businesses in a single area, the broadcast spectrum cannot.

 

[matt0611]

:facepalm;

Thus confirming you are driven by partisan dogma and lack a basic understanding of the resource. Have you taken any science classes? Do you understand at all what the electromagnetic spectrum is and how it works? Do you understand electromagnetic waves spread out at the speed of light, cross all property lines, are shared by everyone within range? For you to hint that they are somehow anything other than a public resource suggests either vast ignorance or an extreme, absurd level of blind partisanship.



You are certainly entitled to your own opinions. You are not entitled to your own facts. You're demonstrating you are unwilling to consider fact at all in clinging to your opinion.



Certainly true if you put party before country. Otherwise, not so much.

I have an MS in electrical engineering, so yeah, I know a little something about the electromagnetic spectrum, thanks.

Why are bringing "party" into this?
Who said anything about party. I don't even subscribe to any party anyway.

Just because the airwaves go over private party, shouldn't make them a public good in my philosophy. I support complete turnover to private hands when it comes to the airwaves, out of government control. If the government wants to keep some for emergency or informational purposes then fine.

 

[spidey07]

I have an MS in electrical engineering, so yeah, I know a little something about the electromagnetic spectrum, thanks.

Why are bringing "party" into this?
Who said anything about party. I don't even subscribe to any party anyway.

Just because the airwaves go over private party, shouldn't make them a public good in my philosophy. I support complete turnover to private hands when it comes to the airwaves, out of government control. If the government wants to keep some for emergency or informational purposes then fine.

Of all things I want the governments hands off of, the spectrum isn't one of them. It would be chaos, nothing would work.

 

[fskimospy]

I have an MS in electrical engineering, so yeah, I know a little something about the electromagnetic spectrum, thanks.

Why are bringing "party" into this?
Who said anything about party. I don't even subscribe to any party anyway.

Just because the airwaves go over private party, shouldn't make them a public good in my philosophy. I support complete turnover to private hands when it comes to the airwaves, out of government control.

That sounds like a terrible idea. So if someone wants to start up their own radio station and blast over everyone else, that's a better way of doing things? It's a ticket to massive interference problems. Hell, I'd just jam my competitors until they went out of business.

If you have an idea for how to operate a broadcast spectrum completely free from government oversight, I'd be interested to hear it.

 

[spidey07]

That sounds like a terrible idea. So if someone wants to start up their own radio station and blast over everyone else, that's a better way of doing things? It's a ticket to massive interference problems. Hell, I'd just jam my competitors until they went out of business.

If you have an idea for how to operate a broadcast spectrum completely free from government oversight, I'd be interested to hear it.

Keep current laws about "shall not cause harmful interference" and power levels. What you would end up with is companies owning/patenting frequency ranges for their devices and nothing would talk to anything.

Take a look at the 2.4 Ghz public spectrum these days. So damn crowded it's almost useless.

And you can take away the weather band from my cold dead hands. That's an example of government doing it's job properly.

 

[Corn]

The roadway system is in no way as limited as over the air broadcast spectrum.

The roadway system is much more scarce than the broadcast spectrum. You must live where there is never a traffic jam......

But that is really beside the point. The public road system is still a limited public resource and according to the typical liberal, it is therefore in the public's interest to force all those utilizing the public's resources for distribution of content to provide fairness for all those with opposing viewpoints to editorial content.

oops. double post.

 

[fskimospy]

But that is really beside the point. The public road system is still a limited public resource and according to the typical liberal, it is therefore in the public's interest to force all those utilizing the public's resources for distribution of content to provide fairness for all those with opposing viewpoints to editorial content.

Oh look, there you go with what the 'typical liberal' thinks again. Do us all a favor and let the typical liberal worry about what they think.

All resources are not equally limited, therefore rules that make sense for some resources would not make sense for others. Jesus christ man, I'm on your side on this and you're STILL doing an insanely horrible job arguing our side. Maybe you should just stop.

 

[Corn]

I live in New York City. I know traffic jams. I will repeat, the roadway system is nowhere near as scarce as the broadcast spectrum. The roadway system can service thousands to millions of different businesses in a single area, the broadcast spectrum cannot.

Bullshit. For hours a day, using NYC as an example, demand for the public roadway system regularly outstrips supply. The same cannot be said of the public broadcast spectrum. Feel free to provide evidence that, in NYC for example, public the public broadcast spectrum has zero available bandwidth for any broadcaster that may wish to purchase a license to broadcast.

 

[fskimospy]

Bullshit. For hours a day, using NYC as an example, demand for the public roadway system regularly outstrips supply. The same cannot be said of the public broadcast spectrum. Feel free to provide evidence that, in NYC for example, public the public broadcast spectrum has zero available bandwidth for any broadcaster that may wish to purchase a license to broadcast.

Traffic jams mean that people get to places more slowly than they would otherwise. Sufficient broadcast interference means that it doesn't get there at all.

Broadcast spectrum crowding is a regular issue that the FCC is constantly dealing with, it's a big problem for a lot of wireless data currently, as the old styles of broadcast control so much of it. I'm not sure how you don't know this. There are currently quite a few cities in the US where there are no more licenses available for new broadcasts (Jacksonville for example).

Seriously, stop talking. You're making the anti-fairness doctrine people look bad.

 

[Corn]

There are currently quite a few cities in the US where there are no more licenses available for new broadcasts (Jacksonville for example).

Seriously, stop talking. You're making the anti-fairness doctrine people look bad.

Of course you can provide proof of that claim, right?