Why ‘fairness’ fails,

[Ian David]

I disagree with the article below, for so MANY reasons. But, I have posted it here for the sake of discussion. That, and because I like the picture of Oxycontin Limpballs with duct tape on his mouth.


Why ‘fairness’ fails
The excesses of right-wing talk radio have sparked a move to re-impose an equal-time doctrine. It’s a bad idea.
July 25, 2007 3:46:13 PM

Anyone who has ever sampled the auditory sewer that is right-wing talk radio can understand the impulse to reinstate the so-called “fairness doctrine,” which, for 38 years, gave the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) the power to regulate broadcast speech, under the guise of balancing public debate. That is just what an improbable coalition of congressional lefties and right wingers is again threatening to do.

It would indeed be satisfying to symbolically rip the tonsils out of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, and Bill O’Reilly, the slime masters who dominate national syndication. And it would be equally satisfying to neuter the host of second-rate imitators who plague local radio. But that would be silly and wrong-headed. Here’s why.

Born in 1949, the fairness doctrine was the child of a primitive day, when radio bandwidth was limited and television was still developing. Cable TV, satellite radio, and the Internet — and all that it has spawned: e-mail, search engines, blogs, podcasts, YouTube — were beyond conception. Better known as the equal-time provision, the fairness doctrine called for “ample play for the free and fair competition of opposing views.” That sounds reasonable enough, but in both theory and in practice, the fairness doctrine was a bad idea.

Under its guise, political appointees had the right to act as policemen of sorts, regulating broadcasters in a way that would be unthinkable for newspapers and magazines. The government was called upon to regulate political discussion; that discussion might ultimately affect government action. There was a circularity to this that was so contradictory as to be ridiculous.



More:
http://thephoenix.com/article_ektid44385.aspx

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[ixion]

1. 'balancing' fact with fantasy is not fairness

it is capitulation. When the rethugs want to start using facts, then the debate will proceed. As long as they persist in living in fariyland, there will be neither debate nor fairness, IMO.