Fighting the Fairness Doctrine

...A nominal, sometimes token presentation of opposing viewpoints is enough to satisfy the regulation...

...Its 1985 report said it "has never definitely concluded that the Fairness Doctrine was codified in 1959...

...It did not...

...The Fairness Doctrine was originally drawn up by the FCC itself in 1949, the first of three "dates of infamy" in broadcast liturgy...

...Industry spokesmen began complaining about the doctrine the day it was pronounced...

...Sine e Red Lion, the number of radio stations has gone up almost 50 percent (from 6,600 to 9,800), the number of television stations has risen 44 per cent (from 837 to 1,208), and the number of cable systems has tripled, with cable subscribers increasing by 1,000 per cent over the past 17 years...

...It has wondered aloud whether Congress was "only ratifying the existing policy concerning application of the Fairness Doctrine to news broadcasts...

...Nobody, certainly no government agency, they objected, ever told the print media that "opposing viewpoints" had to be included in their stories . And particularly since the 1969 decision in Red Lion v. FCC, broadcasters have protested that their First Amendment rights have been seriously compromised...

...In 1984, there was again one adverse ruling against a broadcaster, this out of 6,800 complaints...

...It leans heavily on the fact that the FCC says the doctrine "disserves the public interest...

...Instead, the final report of the hearings issued in August 1985, after marshaling all the negative evidence, ended with a weak burst of shots fired in the air: The FCC would go on enforcing the regulation because Congress wanted it that way...

...Either way an appeal to the Supreme Court is a distinct possibility...

...For opponents, the only playing field in to wn remains the courts...

...The Meredith Corporation of Iowa, ownerofWTVH, was outraged and filed an appeal, indicating that it plans to take the matter all the way to the Supreme Court...

...Former FCC Chairman Newton Minow has pointed out that when a newspaper goes out of business, rarely does a new one take its place...

...They're aware, too, that evenhanded-ness in broadcasting is a much greater problem in small communities than in large urban areas where competition tends to bring balance...

...Actually, it is the name of a small town in Pennsylvania and the home of radio station WGCB...

...But there are still more people who want to broadcast than there are licenses available, and that was the heart of the scarcity finding...

...The Court said it did not believe that such rules were really a form of pre-censorship for broadcast journalists, and therefore they werecon-stitutional...

...The FCC held two days of carefully-orchestrated public hearings, supplemented by stacks of written comments from interested parties, to buttress the Chairman's claim that the doctrine was "unnecessary" and "philosophically distasteful...

...So the debate has raged since 1959: Did Congress codify the Fairness Doctrine, or not...

...But as far as the FCC was concerned, a personal attack had been made on Cook and he was entitled to free response time...

...In the process of passing the recent Omnibus Appropriations Bill (including FCC funds), for example, the House-Senate conference said specifically that the Commission was not to change anything about the Fairness Doctrine before submitting a report next September exploring different means of administering and enforcing it...

...Last year, out of nearly 4,000 Fairness complaints against stations, only one was found valid...

...They reason that since the Commission created the regulation and today feels it no longer serves the public interest, the Commission has the authority to reverse the process...

...This concept actually has to be turned somewhat on its side in order to be understood (although not entirely on its head, as some broadcast pundits would have it...

...Briefly, a second suit currently before the DC Court of Appeals appeared to fill the bill...

...It happened when the legislators were making changes in the so-called Equal Time Rule, guaranteeing all bona fide candidates for elected office equal air time during political campaigns...

...One day late in November 1964, thestation played a prerecorded tape in which Right-wing evangelist preacher Billy James Hargis attacked author Fred Cook, who had written a critical biography of Barry Goldwater...

...But he has thus far failed to achieve the number one priority of his campaign—elimination of the Fairness Doctrine...

...When it was presented this past September, one of the judges looked down from his bench and, capturing the essence of the argument, observed that the Commission was "hardly a profile in courage...

...Not that his efforts received much support from the outgoing Republican Senate...

...The high point of Fowler's an ti-Fairness offensive came in the spring of 1985...

...Joining it in a general attack on the doctrine were the Radio and Television News Directors Association (RTNDA), the National Association of Broadcasters and two television networks...

...In 1983, there were no actions against stations resulting from Fairness complaints...

...Abolition, Congress made clear, is not an alternative...

...Inthesummerof 1984, television station WTVH in Syracuse sold time to the Energy Association of New York for commercials advocating the continued construction of the Nine Mile II nuclear plant in upstate New York...

...But a careful reading of what House and Senate leaders have said on the subject indicates that they have a genuine concern about television's massive influence...

...The involvement of the industry's heavy hitters made it clear that the issue, as far as they were concerned, went far beyond a dispute over reply time at a small rural radio station...

...To some extent, the situation is already out of hand...

...Strictly on the basis of actual FCC actions against stations, the answer would have to be very little...

...Yet as an FCC official commented to me, they could also mean that most broadcasters comply before the Fairness machinery catches up with them...

...tions ran stories echoing the criticism and explaining that, contrary to what some might think, the regulation was in fact inhibiting broadcast journalists...

...It is hard to believe that this is the "chilling effect" that has taken so much of Mark Fowler s time and energy during the last five years...

...Given the momentum provided by this publicity, not to mention the support it received from the White House, the FCC was expected to announce that the Fairness Doctrine was null and void...

...The Supreme Court had a different concept of scarcity in mind, though...

...A two-part regulation, the Fairness Doctrine asks broadcasters to "devote a reasonable amount of broadcast time to the discussion of controversial issues of public importance," and "to do so fairly, so that the public has a reasonable opportunity to hear opposing viewpoints...

...Frequently it is the Fairness Doctrine alone that keeps the station from being totally one-sided, particularly on local issues...

...a previous contributor to The New Leader, is an associate professor of television and radio and director of the Broadcast Journalism Program at Brooklyn College...

...The sword," itsays, "hasalready been used to inflict its wound and to leave its scar...

...Nevertheless, critics contend, if the FCC wants to it can simply stop enforcing the Fairness Doctrine...

...If yes, the FCC cannot kill it off by fiat...

...The Commission seems befuddled and paralyzed by the uncertainty...

...He and its industry opponents are now anxiously awaiting a decision from the Court of Appeals in Washington...

...They need a strong case that will not only make it all the way to the Supreme Court but, once there, will persuade the justices to reverse the hated Red Lion decision...

...In many small cities throughout the United States there is only one radio station (and no local television station...

...The Court will surely hear Minow's conclusion cited: "As long as scarcity exists, the need for some measure of regulation will exist...

...Which brings us to the question of the real effect the Fairness Doctrine has had...

...To quote one FCC official, "they seem shocked that when they discuss the abortion issue they have to acknowledge that there is a pro-abortion point of view.' Broadcasters charge that the Fairness Doctrine stifles their inclination to do programs on controversial public issues...

...But Meredith wants to press on, having suffered the pains of the accused...

...At the outside, it could declare Fairness unconstitutional...

...These statistics are typical, and would appear to demonstrate that the system is superfluous...

...With the Democrats back in control, Fowler has no hope of persuading Congress to wipe out the principle...

...It was a small incident, of no great importance in itself...

...more likely, it will send the issue back to the Commission...

...Consequently, the Senate went on to say broadcasters were not relieved of ','the obligations imposed upon them under this act to operate in the public interest and to afford reasonable opportunity for the discussion of conflicting views on issues of public importance...

...The second is 1959, when Congress took note of the tenet and officially embraced it...

...Were it not for continuing opposition on Capitol Hill, Fowler would settle the matter unilaterally...

...FOWLER'S OBSESSION Fighting the Fairness Doctrine byherbertdorfman Ever since he was named Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) by Ronald Reagan five years ago, Mark Fowler has single-mindedly sought to deregulate the broadcasting industry...

...The catch is that the FCC no longer has a quarrel with WTVH...

...Some Senators then had second thoughts...

...But the doctrine was not mentioned by name...

...People who want to broadcast do need a license, and very few are available...

...Moreover, complaints received after a program has been aired are put through a bureaucratic procedure that discourages all but the most heated protesters...

...In Chicago, an independent candidate was demanding equal time whenever Mayor Richard J. Daley was mentioned on a news program...

...In their view, the First Amendment guarantees them freedom of the press and the doctrine takes it away...

...The station refused, on the ground that the Fairness Doctrine was unconstitutional...

...The last Appropriations Committee statement on the FCC's budget had the following reminder: "This committee has long taken an interest in insuring that the Fairness Doctrine is not weakened in any way...

...First Amendment case: The station exercised its First Amendment right to sell time to whomever it chooses, then was being forced to hand over reply time, severely crippling its press freedom...

...The third is 1969, when the Supreme Court, in its only ruling on the doctrine, said it was constitutional...

...Even in 1969 it was evident that if a shortage of outlets existed anywhere in the news media, it was not in broadcasting...

...A decade before the Supreme Court's involvement, however, Congress got into the act in a way that quickly became ambiguous and contentious...

...Fowler contends that the doctrine is not in the public interest, "chilling to free speech" and probably violates the Constitution...

...On the other hand, in the same report Commissioner James Quello, who opposes the regulation, confirmed his " conclusion that Congress intended to codify the Fairness Doctrine as part of the 1959 amendments to the Communications Act...

...This, the Court continued, is the scarcity that makes broadcasting different from publishing...

...Soon they were translated into a suit brought by industry groups insisting the FCC should have had the courage of its conclusions...

...The FCC, reading the letter of the law, ordered the stations to grant it...

...The doctrine does not tell stations what to broadcast...

...As for Congress' support of the doctrine, it does have a political aspect...

...What it said was that "there are substantially more individuals whowantto broadcast than there Eire frequencies to allocate," whereas all those who want to publish can do so (if they have the money) and anyone can speak or write as they please...

...The groans could be heard all along Broadcast Row...

...At the moment, that leaves the case mentioned at the outset, initiated by industry groups including the RTNDA, as the main contender against Fairness...

...when broadcast channels become available, there are typically hundreds and sometimes thousands of applications...

...The court's other main point had to do with the "scarcity" of broadcast outlets...

...Five years later, after a tortuous legal j ourney, the case landed in the Supreme Court...

...Throughout the South and lower Midwest it is common for fundamentalist-run radio stations to treat air time as if it were their own editorial page...

...On its face, this is a classic Fairness Doctrine vs...

...Congressmen, fearful that reports of their activities would be sharply curtailed, decided to exempt news programs from the rule...

...The news executives also corroborate the FCC position that broadcasters often shy away from controversy for fear of getting hit with a Fairness charge—no doubt with an eye toward convincing the High Court that broadcast journalists are being inhibited...

...That is the language of the Fairness Doctrine, suggesting Congress meant to fold it into the Communications Act, the basic statute governing broadcasting...

...This has angered most members of the industry, and the suggestion that it is, after all, "merely good journalism" seems to infuriate them even more...

...Wisconsin Senator William Proxmire wondered about broadcasters who, left to their own discretion, might "present one viewpoint and one viewpoint only...

...The sheer number of radio and television stations, for instance, was far greater than that for newspapers...

...What, in practice, is this creature that has the FCC publicly wringing its hands in frustration and industry people saying things like, "The Fairness Doctrine is an absolute threat to every broadcaster" ? Well, depending on your position in the trenches, it is either an assault on the First Amendment rights of broadcasters or, as former FCC Chairman Charles Ferris put it, "responsible journalism...

...Those proceedings had their desired results: Around the country major newspapers and industry publicaHerbert Dorfman...

...Red Lion, indeed, has become the industry code name for the Fairness Doctrine controversy...

...A group fighting nuclear power, the Syracuse Peace Council, asked for free time to respond because the commercials dealt with a controversial issue of public importance .AreluctantFCC,byavoteof 4-1, ordered WTVH to meet its fairness obligations...

...WGCB did not go to the High Court alone...

...What the Fairness Doctrine demands is what is usually regarded as simple responsible journalism...

...The FCC wants to drop the case, hardly making it likely for Supreme Court consideration...

...The arguments focused on the danger the Fairness Doctrine posed to the First Amendment...

...Late information supplied by the station showed that it did provide time for opposing viewpoints...

...They don't need a license...

...The industry would seem to be on firmer ground in urging the Court to abandon its scarcity concept...

...That is the case before the U. S. Court of Appeals in Washington whose outcome is being awaited...

...It also means that" it is the right of the viewers and listeners, not the right of the broadcasters, which is paramount...

...The stifling is self-inflicted...

...He has had some success, notably in easing restrictions on how many stations any one company can own...