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History lesson! Let's talk about the Fairness Doctrine, how it was gutted, and why moves like this from major media outlets make short-term financial sense and are long-term extremely dangerous for democracy. https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2021/01/11/fox-news-overhaul-news-opinion-cnn-tapper-blitzer/
The Fairness Doctrine was a policy at the @FCC. Basically, it was an agreement between the government (which "owns" the radio and broadband spectrum) and companies that wanted access to those airwaves. Cool, the FCC said, but we're going to have some rules for what you can do.
Ezra Klein did a good breakdown of this way back in 2011: https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-fairness-doctrine-in-one-post/2011/08/23/gIQAN8CXZJ_blog.html
A couple of key points: If your program attacked someone, you had to give them a fair chance to respond. And you were constrained from, and could be fined for, only sharing one side of a civic issue. I'm going to go out on a limb and say: I love this. Basic journalism ethics.
The Fairness Doctrine governed a lot of the rules of the road for media and broadcast newsrooms (radio and TV) for the second half of the 20th century. If you think news used to be more informative, less shouty, you are correct. So, what happened?
Well, the Fairness Doctrine survived a Supreme Court challenge that determined that the FCC, by regulating the airwaves, could make requirements of broadcasters, and that DID NOT interfere with their 1A rights.
But Congress in the late '80s was broadly hostile to government regulation. Democrats wanted to enshrine the Fairness Doctrine in law law but failed. Shortly afterward, the FCC ended enforcement of the policy (although it stayed on the books until 2011).
Check out this report from 1993, in which the Heritage Foundation criticizes an effort to revive the Fairness Doctrine. It argues that there's SO MUCH media that the fairness doctrine is kind of pointless. https://www.heritage.org/government-regulation/report/why-the-fairness-doctrine-anything-fair
Their argument, basically, was that there were so many options for getting information that there was no need for *individual outlets* to offer a balanced report.
This is important.
This is important.
Now, did the FCC claim a right to regulate speech on cable news, the internet, etc.? Basically, no. It only asserted its right to require a balanced report of news of national/civic interest from companies that relied on a public resource (the airwaves).
It seems so quaint.
It seems so quaint.
There are a lot of competing priorities for legislation in the new Congress. But we need to do something about the cynical and profit-motivated mis- and disinformation of the American public. And we should start with the @FCC and its powers and duties.
We have ample, recent, nationally horrifying examples of how dangerous information silos and unchecked disinformation campaigns can be -- not "on the Internet" but in daily life.
That's not a reason to give up.
It's a reason to establish boundaries.
That's not a reason to give up.
It's a reason to establish boundaries.
Today, Cumulus Media issued an ultimatum to conservative radio hosts to stop spreading false claims about the election. It's the right thing to do, but it's also clear that media owners are nervous about their culpability (and should be). https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/11/business/media/cumulus-election-fraud-bongino-levin.html
