What would it take to bring back the Fairness Doctrine? Or what other types of media regulation

[Quixote1818]

could be beneficial to help get control of all the radical opinion journalists and shows? We have all three branches of Gov. so we need to try to get something meaningful through these next two years.

[Phoenix61]

1. Fairness doctrine would impact radio but

cable would still be a wilderness. Would need something new to address that.

[TheBlackAdder]

11. I think TV too. Murdoch was big in pushing to have it removed, spawning the FOX of today.

.

It needs to be expanded to include Cable & Internet news, as they both fall under FCC control and there has been a marked shift from over-the-air television and radio news.

That being said, I did field this question:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=14902824

.

[marlakay]

20. What about that conservative media

That bought most of local news stations? We need that brought back to straight news.

[Phoenix61]

22. Good point. I forgot about those. nt

[Catcar]

2. Yes!

[liberalmuse]

3. This is so crucial. Unchecked propaganda is killing us.

Social media and news sites need accountability for the stuff they are disseminating. I think Reagan getting rid of the Fairness Doctrine has done more damage to our democracy than anything else he did, or any other Republican did afterwards, and that's saying something.

[Ferryboat]

26. That and trickle down economics

[msongs]

4. it only applied to over the airwaves radio and tv using a public license. on can challenge

that license before renewal time if one disagrees with the content of the company's broadcast content

[Tumbulu]

5. Well it is better than nothing

And it was rush Limbaugh that started all of this and it cascaded from there.

[FakeNoose]

6. It would take collective amnesia for the last 40 years

Yeah ... not gonna happen.

[IsItJustMe]

7. An act of Congress, but then it would sadly be overturned by the USSC.

[moondust]

8. UK

~
"The mob that stormed and desecrated the Capitol ... could not have existed in a country that hadn't been radicalized by the likes of [Fox News hosts] Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham, and swayed by biased news coverage," wrote Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan.

But are the airwaves of any democracy free of this kind of harmful propaganda and downright fiction? The United Kingdom, for one, comes pretty close.
~
Why you won't find Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson on British TV

Perhaps some helpful ideas.

Maybe Rupert should have to pay all the legal costs for the terrorists??? Or worse??? What price did Goebbels pay?

[Wednesdays]

27. As for Goebbels, we never got to find out

He offed himself and his family in Hitler's bunker in the final days of World War II, and so never went to trial.

[Tommymac]

9. The Telecommunication Act of 1996 is The Second Barrel that needs to be bent.

Yes, President Clinton signed it into law. He thought it would increase innovation and competition.

Instead, it allowed entities to own more then one type of media in the same market (print, tv and radio), and to form media cartels that could own everything everywhere.

Clear Channel Radio is one big example. Before 1996, there were thousands of independent radio stations. Today Clear Channel owns at least 90% of them, if I recall correctly.

One owner - one point of view.

[Silver1]

10. These are monopolies which need to be broken up.

Clear Channel is one among several which dominate the dissemination of news and information.

[DBoon]

14. breaking up ownership is more politically feasible than regulatnig content

Limit the number of station and other media a single media can own in a market. Require local ownership. Don't let an octopus like Sinclair dominate local radio and TV.

[summer_in_TX]

16. Definitely break up consolidation of radio

and television.

But tweaking the law to require media to have public interest obligations could get at cable TV too and maybe apply to social media and websites. Not subtracting their content, so no censorship, just requiring the addition of other points of view.

In social media it could be achieved by algorithm changes.

[Silver1]

18. Octopus is a good way to describe them.

Sinclair has made it their mission to buy small town independent papers all over the country and has skewed them all conservative. They've been doing it for a long time and have had a huge impact on public perception of the issues we're facing.

This was a top down strategy. It's intentional manipulation of peoples perceptions and opinions. It's completely counter to the concept of "free speech" even while they hide behind the first amendment.

[DBoon]

19. Also a nod to author Frank Norris' book The Octopus

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Octopus:_A_Story_of_California

[misanthrope]

23. Ha! You really think Bill Clinton was naive and gullible enough to believe that?

Ray Charles could see what was going to happen with monopolization after removing those limits.

[onenote]

24. Sorry, but here are some inconvenient, but actual, facts.

Last edited Sun Jan 17, 2021, 11:35 AM - Edit history (1)

As of January 2021:
There are 4551 AM Commercial Radio Stations
There are 6699 FM Commercial Radio Stations
There are 4195 FM Non-Commercial Radio Stations.

As of December 1995 (pre-1996 Act)
There were 4908 AM Commercial Radio Stations
There were 5292 FM Commercial Radio Stations
There were 1812 FM Non-Commercial Radio Stations

It is absolutely true that the repeal of radio station ownership limits allowed Clear Channel to go on a buying spree that gave it over 800 stations by 2000. Moreover, Clear Channel went through a variety of changes during the ensuing decade, including rebranding itself as iHeartMedia. Ultimately, the company's accumulation of an enormous amount of debt caused it to file for bankruptcy in 2018. It emerged from bankruptcy and still is the nation's largest owner of commercial radio stations with 858 stations. The next four largest radio stations are Cumulus (429), Townsquare (321) Entercom (235) and Saga (113). iHeartMedia thus owns less than 8 percent (not 90%) of the 11250 commercial radio stations in the country and the top five station owners, taken together, own under 18%. These percentages drop further if you include the 4195 non-commercial FM radio stations in the calculation.


Again, the number of stations owned by these companies is vastly greater than the number they did and could own before 1996, but the idea that one company (or even few companies) control 90 percent of all radio stations is simply a myth.

Lastly, the Fairness Doctrine wasn't a silver bullet when it was in effect, and it wouldn't be a silver bullet now. If you were African American and living in the South in the early 1960s (or even later), the FD didn't make your life appreciably better or prevent the police and local governments from being overtly racist. The fairness doctrine didn't prevent states from banning abortion prior to 1973 or prevent the right from building an anti-abortion movement. It didn't prevent Nixon from being reelected in 1972, and it didn't prevent the Democrats from losing to Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984. And it didn't prevent Scalia from being confirmed to the Supreme Court in 1986.

Finally, as posted elsewhere, a new "Fairness Doctrine" would have no chance of surviving Constitutional scrutiny. The same could be said about several other ideas floated in response to the OP.

[theneworiginal]

25. George Jr. followed that up with a radical FCC change allowing the further consolidation of media

It was opposed by 80-90% of voters and ultimately helped to sell the war. Rush Limpballs and Clear Channel kept everyone on message.

Media is the key to all of it.

[Wicked Blue]

28. Yes indeed nt

[SammyWinstonJack]

29. Cause when they own the information, they can bend it all they want

[Buckeye_Democrat]

12. Some kind of basic TRUTH doctrine would make me happy.

Right-wingers who insanely believe that "everything is an opinion" don't need to be coddled.

[Quixote1818]

13. Agree. Something in this direction is a good start. nt

[summer_in_TX]

15. Heard today that Biden is planning a

Democracy Summit. Solid proposals for improving media need to be ready.

My proposal would be to require ALL media in the U.S. to have public interest obligations (currently true only of television and radio, due to the limited resource of broadcast spectrum). It'd require a new Communications Act, I think. The requirement would be to have an honest, equitable airing of other points of view (as per the Fairness Doctrine), applying it to cable and talk radio, etc.

Figuring out how to translate that principle to social media and websites is going to be tricky. But if we can get the algorithms to serve up a mixed diet of information to every user, maybe we could achieve something close.

[marlakay]

21. The problem is everyone argues what a fact is now

And fake news crap. They really screwed up honest news.

[onenote]

17. An amendment to the Constitution changing the First Amendment.

Because no new version of the Fairness Doctrine would survive challenge.