Fairness Doctrine Talking Points

What is the Fairness Doctrine?

• It’s NOT about fairness

• • It is a government plan to censor talk radio and Christian radio

• FCC regulation that requires broadcasting stations to air both sides of a controversial issue

• • Reduces, rather than encourages discussion of controversial issues of public importance
  • While in effect, broadcasters limited controversial programming in fear of government sanction and administrative and legal expenses
• Equal time would be provided free of charge, becoming costly to broadcasting licensees, who would eventually drop popular shows like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham

• • In fact, Bill Ruder, an assistant secretary of commerce under John F. Kennedy, admitted to CBS News producer Fred Friendly that “our massive strategy was to use the Fairness Doctrine to challenge and harass right-wing broadcasters and hope the challenges would be so costly to them that they would be inhibited and decide it was too expensive to continue.”

• Christian radio programs would be threatened as Christian beliefs such as sexuality, marriage, parental responsibility, and the sanctity of human life are considered controversial, or even hate speech

• Should be left to the free market – equal opportunity, not equal results

• In 1974, the Supreme Court found that the Fairness Doctrine inescapably dampens the vigor and limits the variety of public debate in Miami Herald Publishing Company v. Torino

• In 1984, the Supreme Court found that the Fairness Doctrine was limiting the breadth of public debate in FCC v. League of Women Voters

• Original version was abolished by the FCC in 1987 because:

• • It didn’t serve the public interest
  • There was no longer a scarcity of media
  • It was in violation of the First  Amendment (Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press. . .)

• The FCC’s abolishment was upheld by the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in 1993

• Result would be a return to a liberal monopoly of the airwaves, with no free exchange of ideas

Why act now?

• The Fairness Doctrine violates your First Amendment right to free speech

• Supporters in Congress are in violation of their Oath of Office

• • I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

• House Speaker Pelosi said that the Broadcaster Freedom Act will not receive a vote because “the interest of [her] caucus is in reverse.”

• The President controls the FCC – the Obama administration could reinstate it themselves

• Most likely looking at an even bigger Democrat majority – defeating the Fairness Doctrine will be much more difficult

Discharge Petition

• Currently has 196 of the 218 signatures needed to force an up-or-down vote

• Congressman Mike Pence (R-IN): “When freedom gets an up-or-down vote in the People’s House, freedom always wins.”

• 309 members of the House voted for a one-year moratorium on funds for the Fairness Doctrine in 2007, including many Democrats

• However, not one Democrat has signed the discharge petition

Quotes

• Liberal talk show host Alan Colmes: “Modern day talk radio would not thrive if there were a Fairness Doctrine and the bureaucratic nightmare that’s involved in the kind of paperwork you need to do that.  The free market should be the arbiter of what flies on talk radio. … That’s where I want to make it, and not because I have government help to do so.”

• John F. Kennedy: “We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.”

• Broadcaster Dan Rather: “I can recall newsroom conversations about what the FCC implications of broadcasting a particular report would be.  Once a newsperson has to stop and consider what a government agency will think of something he or she wants to put on the air, an invaluable element of freedom has been lost.”