Here is a question. If the Fairness Doctrine was still in effect today, would it cool some of the toxicity in the media?
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WABC’s PSA for Saving AM Radio
- Thread starter Ex-RadioTV
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Here is a question. If the Fairness Doctrine was still in effect today, would it cool some of the toxicity in the media?
It would be completely unworkeable.
The ads are raising awareness among those who use AM and seem to like at least one station. If you are going to have a political rally, don't you start with the members of your own party?
That is the biggest non sequitur I have seen in quite a while. So now supermarket owners are all radicals?
The terms used inside a station are at the discretion of the station itself. Most of us, I am sure, would consider any self promoting announcement to be a "promo".
A PSA, by usage, is an unpaid announcement favoring some kind of non-profit community organization. In one company I was with, proof of being a registered non-profit was required. At another, anything that benefited the community, right down to a high school student car wash for "the team" was enough.
Most of the terms we use, like MOR and CHR for fomats or "air personalities" for DJs or "promos" or "sweepers" and the like are terms of the trade and open to wide variations in application.
For example, we all know what is meant when someone asks, "when is the next book out" but the average listener would have no idea. Again, terms of the trade.
And Fairness was repealed because of convincing arguments like this:
The intrusion by government into the content of programming occasioned by the enforcement of [the fairness doctrine] restricts the journalistic freedom of broadcasters ... [and] actually inhibits the presentation of controversial issues of public importance to the detriment of the public and the degradation of the editorial prerogative of broadcast journalists.
(August 4, 1987, under FCC Chairman Dennis R. Patrick)
Which is also why whatever an unnamed lawyer might have told you in the early 1980s, or whatever gentlemen's agreements were made among Puerto Rico broadcasters 50 years ago, here in the present day in 2025 there's no FCC regulation binding broadcasters about which commercial clients' spots they choose to accept and decline. The only restrictions that exist in black-letter FCC regulation are the lowest-unit-rate rules that require a station that takes spots from any candidate for a federal office to also take spots from every other candidate for that office, and to charge the lowest unit rate for those spots. But that applies only to advertising purchased directly by a candidate's campaign during an election period.
Nor has the FTC (which has been rendered toothless by the current administration) intervened at any point in the recent past to regulate a commercial broadcaster's choices of whether or not to accept specific advertising content.
Unless, of course, you have a specific citation of a current case to the contrary.
(And yes, it's a given that if this particular administration wanted to force stations to carry its ad content, it would weaponize its FCC and whatever's left of the FTC and DOJ to try to get its way, regardless of what laws are on paper, which is probably why most broadcasters aren't resisting the buys.)
As for the Fairness Doctrine in general, it was and continues to be one of the most misunderstood rules among everyone other than communications lawyers. It seems like 99% or more of the time someone on social media brings up "but, but, the Fairness Doctrine," it's about something the FD actually never covered, and would not cover if it were still in effect today.
Bernie Koteen and Ray Kraus of Koteen & Burt. In fact, the approval we got for our plan to set quotas on applicable political advertisements was issued as a full-fledged all-client memo. Similarly, we set precedent with another proceeding before the Commission where we had the "race" specification removed from the annual EEO reports for stations in Puerto Rico because there is no dividing point between races there that would not also be the utmost form of discrimination.
I never said there was. I specifically mentioned that the issue of "taking local rum ads but not taking other hard liquor ads" was a "Fair Trade" issue falling under several other U.S. Government agencies. Similarly, the NAB had to drop its "Code" because it was considered collusion in the same manner as price fixing by competitors. Not an FCC issue, but every bit a part of running a radio station... or a trade association... as FCC rules.
And the case I mentioned defined a station's ability to limit the total number of spots that any applicable candidate in any applicable election could buy.
But they can. They certainly were part, along with the DoJ and others, in nudging the NAB to drop the Code, which had no bearing on anything involving the FCC, but had everything to do with free trade.
Case law does not expire. That means that any organization, individual or government agency can and will bring up past cases in current actions, should they be brought.
I can recall as recently as this decade memos from corporate legal and supported by opinions by outside counsel cautioning management, sales management and even salespersons from limiting access to specific advertisers without consulting them.
There are entire books about the subject. Oddly, the Wikipedia article gives a broad overview but does not detail what you bring up... which is perhaps the most important aspect... what it did not cover.
Here is a 1966 interpretation by the NAB back when the NAB had both teeth and knowledge: https://www.worldradiohistory.com/A...l-Broadcast-Catechism-&-Fairness-5th-1966.pdf
Books and literature on the Fairness Doctrine sadly aren't readily available to combat social media microblogging posts that complain about an outlet airing political views they don't like and don't think about the potential consequences of their actions.
Removing the Doctrine likely extended the lifespan of AM by about 20–30 years overall, especially in smaller markets that could barely afford to keep the old-school mom-and-pop setups going, with round-the-clock personalities and robust news departments (to speak of other artifacts from a bygone era). But Rush would have still been nationally syndicated and people like Cats would still be station owners. And we would still be talking on here about how long before AM stations give up the ghost altogether... possibly by 2010 instead of 2030.
Removing the Doctrine likely extended the lifespan of AM by about 20–30 years overall, especially in smaller markets that could barely afford to keep the old-school mom-and-pop setups going, with round-the-clock personalities and robust news departments (to speak of other artifacts from a bygone era). But Rush would have still been nationally syndicated and people like Cats would still be station owners. And we would still be talking on here about how long before AM stations give up the ghost altogether... possibly by 2010 instead of 2030.
Limbaugh had a show during the Fairness Doctrine, and I think talk radio would have still extended the life of AM. I don't believe "fairness" would have meant conservative host followed by libersl host, followed by..." but in the late 80s through mid-90s, Tom Leykis was a liberal doing a talk show (even though I was more conservative then I thought he defended liberal positions well and was entertaining), Michael Jackson (the KABC/Talkradio host) Alan Colmes, guys like Bob Lassiter might have been too much for some markets back then but you get the idea. Air America putting mostly non-broadcasters on in the 00s was entirely different.
Fairness would mean hearing both sides of the argument on any given topic.
But there are often more than two sides.
Right side, Left side and the truth.
If the fairness doctrine were in effect today, I bet it would provide for better talk radio. Too much of what is on now is predictable before the hosts even open up the mike. Clay & Buck, Sean and Mark Levin are all going to be pro Trump every day, every issue. NPR is going to be anti-Trump, every day, every issue. If they had to mix it up, either with paired Hannity/Colmes style or red followed by blue shows, they might bring in more listeners. If the red/blue show idea is thought to be unworkable, maybe that would be because there IS too much vitriol in the content. A mellower, more 'let's solve the problem' attitude is where many people are politically. In many areas the number of independent voters rivals those who are registered one way or the other. Are those independents a market that can be tapped? I bet a lot of them can't take the negative attitudes that permeate talk programming today.
Let's clear up one point you made, Stuart. NPR is not "anti-Trump". They don't, as a news organization, take any editorial position against Trump one way or the other. Their news programs – Morning Edition, All Things Considered, Here & Now, Weekend Edition – go out of their way to be even-handed, interviewing supporters and detractors, attempting to give his administration's officials and/or spokespeople equivalent time. The problem is many of their representatives ignore their invitations, or outright refuse them. Or, when they are willing to come on any of the NPR programs, they won't answer tough questions, or they bluster, or they're outright hostile in how they respond. That doesn't make for good radio, and it sure doesn't make for civil discussions.
Some of the programs that run on NPR but are produced at member stations, such as Fresh Air or 1A, have editorial points of view that some listeners might not agree with, but they still have to abide by NPR's journalistic standards of fairness and factual accuracy. (Not to say that anyone can't make the occasional mistake.) And some programs that air on many NPR stations (e.g., Marketplace or The World) are actually not distributed by NPR itself, but by competitor producers/distributors like APM or PRX, and they may have different standards and practices. (Though most programming is distributed, technically, over the public radio distribution system, which NPR manages.) The problem is that most listeners don't have enough of a critical ear to understand all these differences, so to them everything on public radio is "NPR".
OK. Forget about Trump. A national news organization that has zero-point-zero registered Republicans on their staff is going to have some political bias, and the summary at the end of any report is going to be left leaning. I can understand why no Democrat would want to go on an AM radio shout fest where the objective is an emphatically hard right beatdown. But I question whether Republicans repeatedly refuse to appear on a calmer atmosphere at NPR/PRI/APM programming. Some wiseguy like Charlie Kirk would probably be all in on getting on their air, but the public radio hosts don't want the challenge. (I don't agree with him a lot of the time, and the youtube postings I've seen are probably heavily edited, but Kirk does have the ability to respond in a give and take).
Since Morning Edition is a staple of most main-line listener supported radio stations Public Radio IS NPR in the average listener's mind. Public radio is hurting for money and reading on these forums about 'another' cutback is common. Public radio could possibly get more member/supporters if they had a regular program(s) (not at 10pm at night or weekends) that Liz Cheny types could regularly count on having summary conclusions of discussions that the conservative viewpoint has validity. There are a lot of Republican never-Trumpers - do any of them have radio capabilities that could be added to the NPR on-air hosting slots?
But not necessarily in the same program.
Actually, talk radio was dying before "Fariness" was eliminated. Most shows were not adversarial. What you had was Roman gladiators modeling their armor instead of fighting. The repeal of "Fairness" permitted Rush to be outspoken, and others followed. Many consider that Limbaugh alone gave AM radio another two decades or a bit more of productive life.
But that is not what talk hosts do. Continuing with my Roman Coliseum analogy, people want a passionate, fighting attitude. "Mellow" does not get AQH listening.
Conservative talk appeals to the farther right, because they tend to have broadly similar attitudes on gender, immigration, big government, education, raising a family and the like.
Centrists are very spread out, some are liberal socially and conservative economically, while others are the opposite. And there is more division among liberals than ultra-conservatives as the efforts at building left leaning talk stations and even a network have shown.
(Those who would disagree with my analysis of liberals and the failure of the liberal talk web will say that the hosts sounded like campaigners instead of entertainers; too much passion for the cause and not enough fun in each show).
And are they aware that some people are actually revolted by the tabloid cover look? (I'm one of them.)
For some eyes, it conveys urgency.
For mine, the visual chaos makes everything about it scream bulls--t and that also transfers to their message, whether that also was intended to or not. It's just sad modern media has been reduced to this.
But we're talking about WABC, So "modern media" is a bit of a stretch anyway.
That's exactly what conservative talk radio has become within the past decade, or even longer. Rush Limbaugh calling Sandra Fluke the S-word in 2012 is when it jumped the shark, and it has never recovered since then. That was just insulting to be mean, not insulting to be funny.
But ironically now if you want to hear arguments for both sides of an issue on talk radio, just wait until Trump changes his mind about something.
I have no idea what they're aware of. I was just analyzing what I was seeing. Don't shoot the
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