Over at the Next Right, Patrick Ruffini writes that conservatives shouldn't waste their time crying wolf about the Fairness Doctrine, a regulation that would mandate equal time for political opinions on public airwaves and thus kill conservative talk radio. Ruffini notes that the re-imposition of the Fairness Doctrine would "constitute a direct provocation to the Right without any tangible political benefit in the Center or the Left", and, futhermore, Obama said he does not want to bring it back. Focus on legitimate threats like nationalized health care and card check, he writes.
But Conn Carroll responds:
Yes, Obama is too smart to bring back the 'Fairness Doctrine'. You are absolutely not going to see any movement in Congress to pass legislation forcing the FCC to revive the same rule it abandoned in 1987. But as the Center for American Progress points out, Congress does not need to pass any new legislation: "The public obligations inherent in the Fairness Doctrine are still in existence and operative, at least on paper." Instead you will see a regulatory push at the FCC to intimidate conservative radio stations by shortening their licensing requirements from every eight, to every three years, and forcing them to meet stepped up "public interest" requirements. This new standard would be just as vague and ripe for abuse as the old Fairness Doctrine ever was.
... a re-regulation of radio broadcasting along the lines that CAP envisions is a real threat to freedom of speech. And the way Obama will porbably go about it, bypassing Congress and using a bureacratic out of touch regulatory body, is exactly the route the Obama administration is probably going to take on cap and trade as well. As Patrick points out CAP "president John Podesta is leading the Obama transition" and he "is dead serious."
An article by Marin Cogin in The New Republic argues that concerns about the Fairness Doctrine were mere "Republican paranoia." After all, Cogin writes, most Democrats don't really want to bring it back. According to Dick Durbin's press secretary:
"This is a completely made-up issue." Senator Durbin's press secretary says that Durbin has "no plans, no language, no nothing. He was asked in a hallway last year, he gave his personal view"--that the American people were served well under the doctrine--"and it's all been blown out of proportion."
But Blake Dvorak points out that Durbin said in June 2007:
"It's time to reinstitute the Fairness Doctrine. ... I have this old-fashioned attitude that when Americans hear both sides of the story, they're in a better position to make a decision."
There's no indication that this was Durbin's "personal view". In fact, he took to the floor of the U.S. Senate to argue against the Coleman amendment that would have banned the Fairness Doctrine:
Mr. Durbin: What [if] the marketplace does not provide opportunities to hear both points of view? Since the people who are seeking the licenses are using America's airwaves, does the government, speaking for the people of this country, have any interest at that point to step in and make sure there is ... a fair and balanced approach to the information given to the American people?
Mr. Coleman: The government does not -- does not -- have the responsibility.
The amendment was defeated in the Senate on a party line vote.
Obama may be too smart to let Democrats re-impose the Fairness Doctrine, but it's hardly a "completely made up issue" concocted by paranoid Republicans. While conservatives should be wary of Democratic attempts to pass burdensome regulations on talk radio, Ruffini is right that, with all the awful legislation the Democratic Congress plans on passing, radio regulations should be among the least of our concerns.
