The "Fairness Doctrine" should be rejected

Definitions and History. Con asserted that my account of the Fairness Doctrine, mostly copied from Wikipedia, was "right wing." However, he did not cite any inaccuracy or offer any alternative definition or history. Therefore I assume he accepts it. I guess it is history he doesn't like. 1. I argued that it was hypocritical to suppress free speech on the airwaves, when free speech is allowed on the other media. Con argued that government has the inherent right to control anything the government owns as the government sees fit. It would follow from Con's argument that since the government owns the highway system, the government has a right to determine the content of newspapers shipped on the highways. The government has no such right by virtue of ownership. The government does have a right to regulate drivers licenses for vehicles on the highways and to regulate the power and regulate the frequency of transmitters on the public airways. Drivers licenses and transmitter licenses are justified by the public good in keeping the publicly-owned property operating successfully. However, there is no inherent right to regulate every aspect of the public property to suit government purposes. Thus the government cannot assert that only "fair" newspapers, as judged by the government, can be shipped on delivery trucks over the public highways. If there is doubt as to the right of the government to manage every aspect of what it owns, that doubt is settled by the Constitution, which states in the First Amendment that the right to free speech cannot be abridged. To abridge free speech, there must be some extremely compelling reason. For example, a permit to demonstrate on public property may be required for reasons of public safety, but not because the protesters have failed to meet a fairness doctrine in providing alternative viewpoints in their protest demonstration. Opposing viewpoints cannot be banned from the public lands, but the government cannot require that time be given in the same rally. The opposition must organize their own rally. Similarly, the government should not be allowed to require a radio station owner to give his virtual podium to opponents. Opponents need to get their own. The attempt to make Air America a commercial success showed that their is no problem whatsoever buying the air time required to present the liberal viewpoint. It failed because no one showed up to listen. It is not the government's job to force viewpoints upon the public. It should be legal to have a civil rights rally without offering the podium to racists for an opposing viewpoint -- that's the principle at stake. 2. Con claims that the government has little to do with determining what is fair, because that is the job of fairness-in-media organizations. If that is true, then clearly there is no need for the Fairness Doctrine, because such media organizations already exist, and the Fairness Doctrine will not change that. Of course, it is the enforcement aspect that requires the government, and in that case it is the government that decides what is fair and unfair. That is exactly the model applied in authoritarian states, only in those states the government determines "fairness" in all media, not just the public airways. 3. Con is correct that I didn't distinguish cable subscribers from satellite TV subscribers in saying there was 85% coverage. Reported in 2007, "Cable penetration dropped to a 17-year low of 61.3% in February, as pay TV competition from direct-broadcast satellite and telephone rivals continues to eat into the basic-subscriber counts of cable distributors. ... Combined DBS penetration from DirecTV and EchoStar Communications hit 25.2% in February, up from 21% this time last year, TVB said." http://www.multichannel.com... Thus, total coverage for pay TV, cable plus satellite, is 86.5%. This does not take into account the old-fashioned free C-band systems that use large satellite dish antennas. They still exist, mainly in remote areas. The point is that there is no shortage of media availability. The justification for the fairness doctrine is that there is no way to get news other than the public airwaves. That is obviously false. To the 86.5% pay TV coverage must be added the coverage provided by the Internet. The Internet is extremely strong in remote areas; Alaska has the highest rate of Internet coverage in the US. http://blogs.zdnet.com... 4. "I'm stating this again. Our government doesn't choose the balance... That is the job of Watchdog groups. I also don't think you realize what Free-Speech is. In good nature, I will tell you that free-speech is allowing someone to give their opposing view point. This is what the Fairness Doctrine does!!!! By you saying that liberals should not be allowed to give opposing viewpoints means that YOU are banning free speech." I ask Con to state explicitly how he thinks the Fairness Doctrine will be enforced. How will watchdog groups *require* that liberals get time to respond to conservative viewpoints, and that all-Caribbean-music stations meet their quota of public affairs programming? Air America had no difficulty getting air time; they failed because they could not attract listeners. Why does Con believe they were not allowed to give their viewpoint? The Fairness Doctrine is supposed to remedy the failure of Air America to attract an audience by forcing the profit-making conservative programming to pay for the liberal air time. I challenge Con to state clearly and explicitly how that is going to be accomplished using media watch dog groups. The way is worked in the past was that the government threatened to yank the station's license if the station didn't meet government standards. What is Con's system, and why does he call it the "Fairness Doctrine"? Nothing in the proposed law involves watchdog groups, so what is he talking about? 5. I argued that the fairness doctrine avoids the central issue of real fairness, which is bias in the selection and reporting of news stories. I gave examples. Con failed to address the problem at all, asserting the Fairness Doctrine gives both "an accurate perspective on both sides['] opinion." My examples relative to this point were with biased news reporting, not with opinion. The Fairness Doctrine would do nothing to prevent media from presenting wildly biased news reporting. Thus, the news media reported a severe problem with homelessness under Bush41, but the day that Clinton took office, reporting ceased. There are innumerable examples. Biased reporting is a much bigger problem than biased opinion. No one believes that Rush Limbaugh is offering straight news. He is offering opinion and everyone knows it, so listeners are aware they should consider it as opinion. However, when MSNBC or the New York Times slants the news by failing to present hard questions to Obama or failing to report negative stories, the public in fact tends to accept the bias as truth. All the Fairness Doctrine will do is promote biased news reporting while suppressing the people who point out it is biased. I asserted that the sole purpose of the Fairness Doctrine is to suppress dissenting Conservative opinion. Con did not argue that point. He simply argued the "fairness" enforced by the government is a good thing, but only on talk radio and not in any other media. He offers some strange notion that watchdog groups have something to do with the Fairness Doctrine. They do not. It is purely government censorship done on the false premise that media space is so limited that it needs to be rationed. Air America got plenty of space, it just failed due to lack of listeners. "Give up?" I'll hold off on that until such time as Con makes a credible case.