A revealing Washington Post piece (10/10/17) on Sean Hannity makes a common mistake when it comes to the Fairness Doctrine.
In an otherwise informative piece about Fox News‘ Sean Hannity, Donald Trump’s favorite cable anchor, the Washington Post (10/10/17) inaccurately described the Fairness Doctrine, a former FCC rule requiring that broadcasters present controversial issues by including contrasting viewpoints. In “The Making of Sean Hannity: How a Long Island kid learned to channel red-state rage,” the Post’s Marc Fisher reported:
In 1990, Bill Dunnavent was trying to bring a relatively new concept to northern Alabama — highly opinionated political talk radio. Three years earlier, the Federal Communications Commission had repealed the Fairness Doctrine, which for nearly four decades had required broadcasters to provide equal time to people who disagreed with views expressed on the air. The rules kept political talk on the airwaves within civil bounds, some people said. Others said it unfairly limited debate, keeping it dull and centrist.
Actually, the Fairness Doctrine did not require equal time (Extra!, 1–2/05). Fisher is making a common error, confusing the Doctrine with the FCC’s Equal Time rule, which is still in force, but applies solely to political campaigns and candidates.
Additionally, opinionated talk radio was not “a relatively new concept” in 1989 (Extra!, 1–2/07). Indeed, opinionated talk radio, which was always dominated by right-wing personalities, was born in 1960, and flourished in local markets under the Fairness Doctrine, which wasn’t jettisoned until 1987. By taking callers with contrasting views, talk radio was actually seen as comporting with the Fairness Doctrine.
Fisher is not alone in these errors. Over the years, liberals and conservatives have respectively blamed and credited the demise of the Fairness Doctrine for the rapid growth of right-wing talk radio in 1980s and 1990s.
In reality, talk radio owed its rapid growth to the emergence of two new technologies: satellite transmission, which made it possible for local shows to go national; and 1-800 telephone numbers, which permitted shows to take callers from all over the country (Extra!, 1–2/07). That’s why talk radio was growing just as fast or faster before the Fairness Doctrine was jettisoned as it was afterwards.
It’s easy to see why the Fairness Doctrine would be construed as “equal time”:
“The Fairness Doctrine had two basic elements: It required broadcasters to devote some of their airtime to discussing controversial matters of public interest, and to air contrasting views regarding those matters.” FAIR, 1/1/2005
“The Fairness Doctrine was a policy of the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC), introduced in 1949, that required the holders of broadcast licenses both to present controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a manner that was — in the Commission’s view — honest, equitable, and balanced.” Wikipedia
“The Fairness Doctrine, as initially laid out in the report, ”In the Matter of Editorializing by Broadcast Licensees,” required that TV and radio stations holding FCC-issued broadcast licenses to (a) devote some of their programming to controversial issues of public importance and (b) allow the airing of opposing views on those issues.” Washington Post 8/23/2011
“…every few years, someone in Congress brings up the Fairness Doctrine. In 1987 the FCC abolished the policy, which dictates that public broadcast license-holders have a duty to present important issues to the public and — here’s the “fairness” part — to give multiple perspectives while doing so.” Time 2/20/2009
If the Fairness Doctrine did not require “fairness” (and the quotes above mostly refute Steve Rendall’s position), then one should be created.
It would seem that FAIRNES would need to reflect responsibility too. Maybe Mr. Pai should make sure about that. Does any media ever suffer consequences for reporting WRONG and UNTRUE news? I always wondered if the A P suffered any consequences for saying hillary won before the primaries were finished. Many people said , well Hllary had all the delegates…. wow, even before the people voted… good by democratic republic. I would like to see someone write about fairness in other nations elections too. i have read that the U.S made sure that Yeltsin won in Russia… well that sounds like an interesting and timely and necessary story…..could someone write about that? That only seems FAIR considering all the weird news we get is often without facts . : )
thanks for this important historical fact and very important footnote Steve, good to see you having a post on FAIR again :) hope all is well :)
Rendall’s point that technology facilitated the rise of right wing talk radio is well taken; he might have added asymmetric access to big money compared to progressive and left opinion radio. But it seems to me that eliminating the requirement that broadcasters offer a reasonable balance of opposing views, the 1987 revocation of the Fairness Doctrine greatly aggravated the imbalance. That was worsened further by the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which weakened restrictions on concentrated media ownership, increasing the market share of Rupert Murdoch, Clear Channel, Sinclair etc ad naus.