The Return of the Fairness Doctrine

With the ascendancy of Obama into the White House drawing closer, certain parts of the left have been threatening to bring back the "Fairness Doctrine". The proponents of it claim that it is so all points of view will be able to be heard. The problem is that it would target talk radio not the broadcast or print media. Why one and not the others? Anyone who is intellectualy honest, realized that the broadcasters did nothing to hide their bias during the past election and the print media was little better. The one area that had anything critical to say about Obama was talk radio.

What would the "Fairness Doctrine" do? Essentially what the fairness doctrine does is mandates that for every hour of conservative programming, there would have to be an hour of programming. This may seem reasonable to some but what they don't realize is that liberal talk radio has been tried and has failed in almost every market that it has been tried. Those who own radio stations aren't in the business of charity, they are in the business of making money. Whether the owner is a conservative or liberal, they realize that conservative radio programs draw listeners to their station which in turn increases their profit. If these same station owners were forced to put liberal programing on, they would not only lose listeners but they would also lose money.

All of this is really a moot point. The "Fairness Doctrine" is unconstitutional. Amendment I of the United States Constitution states, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."(Emphasis added) The fact that Congress wants to pass a law saying what programming is acceptable or the setup of the radio scheduling goes completely against the first amendment. "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press..." means that Congress cannot pass a law that would restrict the speech. What do they think that talk radio is? The speech that the founders specifically had in mind was political speech. What would they think of us today when Congress thinks that they have the authority to pass a law that would violate the freedom of speech.

Is anyone surprised that Congress thinks that they have the authority to impose the "Fairness Doctrine" when they were able to pass a law that restricted political speech under the guise of campaign finance reform which places limits on the raising of money for political candidates. Another gift that was given to us thanks to campaign finance, was the limiting of political ads as an election gets closer. Is it any wonder that we find ourselves in the position that we are in?