Democrat Goals: Government Control of Media

[Seamus Fermanagh]

The Fairness Doctrine was extant law when Reagan took office. It was on the books in one form or another since 1927 as part of the legislation for the Federal Radio Commission and the successor Federal Communication Commission of 1934. So yes, you may blame Republicans, but the chaps involved were Hoover (Commerce Secretary) and Coolidge (who did not run for another term and let Hoover take the fall for a depression he sorta knew was coming).

Along with de-regulating more government than any administration in a LONG while and winning the Cold War, Reagan got rid of the "fairness" doctrine.

Like many pieces of legislation, this one is mis-labeled. Fairness by this definition requires equal time to all major candidates on any controversial or political issue. The new version would seek to extend this "fairness" to all poltical-content broadcasts. So, stations would be forced to air 3 hours of somebody like Franken in order to keep the very lucrative Limbaugh program up and running. OR they would be forced to cancel Limbaugh.

The intent -- an informed public -- is noble, but the means is impractical and functionally counterproductive to free expression.

[Tribesman]

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The Fairness Doctrine was extant law when Reagan took office. It was on the books in one form or another since 1927 as part of the legislation for the Federal Radio Commission and the successor Federal Communication Commission of 1934.

Yep and the vote was to get proper firm legislation enshrined due to the result of conflicting Supreme court rulings .

Like many pieces of legislation, this one is mis-labeled. Fairness by this definition requires equal time to all major candidates on any controversial or political issue. The new version would seek to extend this "fairness" to all poltical-content broadcasts. So, stations would be forced to air 3 hours of somebody like Franken in order to keep the very lucrative Limbaugh program up and running. OR they would be forced to cancel Limbaugh.

Yep a problem was that broadcasters found it too much time and effort to find enough type A moonbats to counter every type B moonbat .