Fairness Doctrine Deux

[b344077]

I woke up this morning and alas, the Fairness Doctrine has not be re-instituted.

Shock.

 

[country24]

Someone "re-instituting" the old Fairness Doctrine isn't a problem. The problem is that if a new "Fairness Doctrine" is proposed, and I have no doubt it will be, it will be something requiring stations to give hours and hours of free time to people who want to respond to profitable programing that draws an audience with programing that no one wants to hear much less sponsor. That's something the original Fairness Doctrine never did.

 

[Infidel]

The problem is that if a new "Fairness Doctrine" is proposed, and I have no doubt it will be, it will be something requiring stations to give hours and hours of free time to people who want to respond to profitable programing that draws an audience with programing that no one wants to hear much less sponsor.

Exactly. Life is not "fair." Get over it.

 

[country24]

I never said it was. All I said was that no one is interested in "re-instituting" the Fairness Doctrine. What they want to do is instute something completely different and pretend that it's the Fairness Doctrine.

 

[JoeU]

A great article on the fairness doctrine can be found here:

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0212-03.htm

Years ago I used to listen to WIND in Chicago. WIND was owned by Group W for many years. Around 1969 they started to air an evening talk show called "Contact". The Contact show was hosted by an actual journalist named Dave Baum. The fairness doctrine was never used to muzzle any discussion. If a controversial subject like abortion were discussed, two or more guest were on the show each representing their side of the discussion with the host Dave Baum as the moderator. With a talk show conducted in this manner, all sides of the issue were aired, people were free to call in and air their views and ask questions of the guests and host.

During campaign season equal time was provided to political candidates for office. This was usually handled with a one hour segment for candidate x and an equal one hour segment for candidate y. In some instances, the opposing candidates would be on together engaged in a debate. How often do you here or see a two or three candidate debate on radio or TV today! This worked very well in that candidates for office had a forum to express there views and platform without having to spend tons of money on attack ads on both radio and TV.

In conclusion, the fairness doctrine fostered discussion and debate of issues eliminating shout down tactics that we are used to hearing over the air waves today. Equal time for candidates will go a long way towards addressing the issue of campaign reform since money is currently the only way to put your views on air in short 30 or 60 sec sound bites as a candidate.

 

[Radio_Realist]

A great article on the fairness doctrine can be found here:

An even better discussion of the Fairness Doctrine, and speculation on what might or might not be included in a New Fairness Doctrine can be found here:

http://www.radio-info.com/smf/index.php/topic,52648.0.html

That discussion was doing quite well, until someone decided (for reasons unknown) that he couldn't be bothered adding his 2¢ worth to an existing thread, he was so important a person and his opinion so weighty and meaningful that he had to launch a whole new thread to hold his piece of sage wisdom, with his name next to it forever.

As for specifically commenting on anything said in this thread, it's already posted in the earlier thread, so why bother saying everything over again a second time?