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In 1987 the Fairness Doctrine was abolished because of the
many media voices in the marketplace were deeming it
unconstitutional.
It is unfortunate that today you will hear everything that is Anti-Trump or Anti-Police
but just about zero coverage on the Protestor Takeover of a 6 block area in Seattle
renamed CHAZ.
The doctrine was designed to keep reporting on a fair and level political playing field but to the
opinions of many Americans the media has over reported news beneficial to the left rather
than reporting all news.
One may complain that the Fair Doctrine is an intrusion of government restricting journalistic freedom while others
strongly believe that only cherry picked stories reach the masses as news outlets are more and more owned by
interests that are more politically Left Leaning than they are Right or Center.
The Fairness and Equal time doctrines do not apply to cable.
They only apply to radio and tv that leased from the citizen owners of the USA government. It would have been impossible for Rush Limbaugh to have a radio program or for the fair and balanced station to exist. Roger Ailes and RR had to get rid of them.
The Equal time only allowed for allocating equal time to opposing opinions for station initiated programming.
If you owned a media outlet and had to be governed by a budget, how would you allocate time and employees to cover what stories?
The Fairness and Equal time doctrines do not apply to cable.
They only apply to radio and tv that leased from the citizen owners of the USA government. It would have been impossible for Rush Limbaugh to have a radio program or for the fair and balanced station to exist. Roger Ailes and RR had to get rid of them.
The Equal time only allowed for allocating equal time to opposing opinions for station initiated programming.
If you owned a media outlet and had to be governed by a budget, how would you allocate time and employees to cover what stories?
Thank you for the insight.
I can see why this ruling so quickly lost the power intended to protect.
News outlets don't want it. Take what's happening in Seattle, Fox has been shown to digitally add armed gunmen into images in their reports. Many news outlets don't want to report balanced opinions, because their viewers don't want to hear balanced opinions.
I think it would be great to have an updated version of it. News should be factual and opinion pieces should be labeled as such. The lines are so blurred now that it's hard for many people to know the difference.
I'm sure if there was political will, people could come up with a new and improved version of this legislation. Something has to be done to fix the information warfare that is being perpetrated on the public in the name of 'news.' For example, the Powers that Be decided what was 'essential' during the pandemic. Obviously, news is essential during a crisis. But are the cable news windbags 'essential' when they are just pure opinion? They made the pandemic far worse by politicizing it. Shouldn't they have been relegated to their homes and You Tube like the rest of us, rather than taking full advantage of their status as 'press?' They were not 'news.' News should be news. Opinion should be opinion. Somehow people should figure this out and regulate it, maybe with a Fairness Doctrine 2.0.
I think it would be great to have an updated version of it. News should be factual and opinion pieces should be labeled as such. The lines are so blurred now that it's hard for many people to know the difference.
How would you know something is fact and truthful?
Because even if it is put out there as fact, others will say it's fake.
Who would you believe?
To me - it's up to people to determine who they are going to trust.
It takes effort to know what the truth is.
And today - more and more believe that truth is relative and not absolute. So it's about whatever is true from their perspective - and not about what actually happened in real life.
Blah blah blah ... The Fairness Doctrine applied only to broadcast television and radio stations. Not to newspapers. Not to cable channels. Social media didn't exist then, but it wouldn't have applied.
The rationale behind the Fairness Doctrine was that the airwaves belonged to all the people, and that broadcast stations only leased the airwaves under government licensing. Broadcast stations were obligated to give air time - not equal time; that's a different FCC rule - for opposing viewpoints, and were obligated to discuss public interest topics on the air.
The Fairness Doctrine was discontinued during the Reagan Administration by a 4-0 vote of the FCC commissioners; 3 of 4 were Reagan appointees.
The equal time rule is another story, but again applies only to broadcast stations and only to political candidates.
I agree and I think all social media should be shut down for good. It’s not good for human beings.
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