Comments on: Update on the “Fairness Doctrine”

By: George

George — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 16:11:37 +0000

Can you imagine the insurance rates for errors and omissions on this? Where’s the feasibility?

By: Owen Splitorff

Owen Splitorff — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 19:49:33 +0000

Comedian Jackie Mason, who’s a big supporter of your BF Act, dis a great video on youtube about the fairness Doctrine

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4a5zsSoWJo

By: Frank Provasek

Frank Provasek — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 09:23:05 +0000

Under the fairness doctrine, the station management itself made the decisions on what was “fair.” Knowing that their license might be reassigned, leaving them with the station hardware but no license to broadcast, made them very aware of their legal responsibility to serve the “public interest, convenience and necessity”
The original Fairness Doctrine was placed into policy in 1929 under Republican Herbert Hoover, codified into law in 1959 under Republican Dwight Eisenhower, and affirmed as Constitutional by the Supreme Court under Republican Richard Nixon under this reasoning:

a) The First Amendment is relevant to public broadcasting, but it is the right of the viewing and listening public, and not the right of the broadcasters, which is paramount.

(b) The First Amendment does not protect private censorship by broadcasters who are licensed by the Government to use a scarce resource which is denied to others.

(c) The danger that licensees will eliminate coverage of controversial issues as a result of the personal attack and political editorial rules is at best speculative, and, in any event, the FCC has authority to guard against this danger.

(d) It is not necessary to decide every aspect of the fairness doctrine to decide these cases. Problems involving more extreme applications or more difficult constitutional questions will be dealt with if and when they arise.

(e) It has not been shown that the scarcity of broadcast frequencies, which impelled governmental regulation, is entirely a thing of the past, as new uses for the frequency spectrum have kept pace with improved technology and more efficient utilization of that spectrum.

By: Pete Scrimpshire

Pete Scrimpshire — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 21:05:45 +0000

Those who would sacrifice freedom for temporary security deserve neither. – Ben Franklin

By: Henry Hull

Henry Hull — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 14:36:43 +0000

So how many traitors are there in congress, and just exactly who is it that pays these monsters???
The media is responsible for the war in Iraq, it is now doing it’s very best to send our children to Iran and Syria. So what does the congress do to stop them? Absolutely nothing!!!! IT allows the media to continue to destroy this nation!!! This loss is quite possibly the best evidence yet that the American system of democracy has failed. THE CONGRESS AND THE SENATE HAVE BEEN BOUGHT OUT BY THE MEDIA ELITE. THEY HAVE CONDEMNED THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES AS WELL AS THEMSELVES ON THIS ONE.