Under Obama, The Fairness Doctrine Will Be Called “Localism”

The much-talked-about “fairness doctrine” was a regulation put on television and radio broadcasters requiring them to balance programming about controversial topics such as politics with multiple viewpoints. While that may sound nice in theory, in practice it forces programming Americans actually want to hear off the air in favor of programming the government thinks Americans should hear.
And that has nothing to do with freedom.
But the “fairness doctrine,” thanks to the concerted efforts of people like Rush Limbaugh, has become a radioactive issue that liberals must avoid. But that won’t stop them from attempting to exercise control over broadcast media, and particularly conservative talk radio. Instead of pushing for the fairness doctrine, what the liberals are now pushing for is “localism” where government-appointed boards would decide what sort of content local broadcasters must provide.
From Broadcast & Cable:

…despite President Obama’s statements to this magazine that he is not interested in bringing back the Fairness Doctrine, it continues to concern broadcasters. It has gained new currency of late with FCC proposals to boost localism; these include creating community advisory boards that stations would have to consult with to determine what type of public interest programming they’d need to put on.

Why do we need “community advisory boards” to tell radio and television broadcasters what to broadcast? It seems to me that those broadcasters are already providing content Americans want, else they wouldn’t be in business. The only possible reason to have these boards is to force broadcasters to put on content they wouldn’t normally air.
And that kind of government control over the media has no place in America. It’s just not necessary. The government has no more business telling broadcasters what content to air then they’ve got business telling the grocery stores what products to carry.

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  • http://ndgoon.blogspot.com/ goon

    Let them try to bring this one it will get challenged in court and then they won’t be able to do anything. I would think the left would want Rush front and center since they are using him as a lightning rod.

  • http://oregonguythinks.blogspot.com/ OregonGuy

    Goon–

    Broadcasters don’t have rights. Broadcasters don’t “own” their piece of the spectrum pie. They are granted a license to use a part of that spectrum in order to serve the public interest.

    That’s it. Under the old Equal Access rules, if your station took a position on an issue, you were required to give equal time–daypart, length–to an opposing view. For free. If Candidate A was running against Congressman X, when Candidate A ran paid spots on your station, Congressman X could receive an equal number of spots–daypart, length–free.

    Local origination advocates are also pushing for “local content”. Can you imagine the guy who plays guitar down at the hippy shack on the weekends spending an hour in your studio playing his “favourite hits?”

    Amazing. And amazingly assinine.

    You think what they are doing to the auto industry is insane; just wait until they get done with your local radio station. And the Courts have never had a role to play in the decisions to require stations to do anything. There is no First Amendment Right in broadcasting.

    Who determines what is required of a broadcaster? The FCC, as authorized by Congress. Radio is a creatue of the state. Under Reagan, sunlight was allowed in. It was nice while it lasted, but the Left will not abide disagreement.
    .

  • 2Hotel9

    oregonguythinks it has the right to silence people, simply because it hates other people having freedom or rights. Good job, dumbfuck.

    As for localism, what is going to happen when Barri&His; Posse start closing local radio stations? Thats right. Your local FM/AM stations are going to be shut down. Barri’s big plan is to reduce the number of stations broadcasting, and to have strict government censorship of the few remaining broadcasters.

    There you go, oregonguythinks. NAZI, it is your political Party’s goal, and you support it 100%.

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