To demonstrate — guess which noted newsman had the following to say about how the Fairness Doctrine operated in practice: “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.”
Dan Rather.
But the same could have been said by Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity and Alan Colmes. All of them, like Dan Rather, have opposed the Fairness Doctrine, an outdated government regulation, abolished in the 1980s, that used to require broadcasters to present contrasting viewpoints on controversial issues or be threatened with fines or losing their broadcast licenses. The doctrine also resulted in lawsuits such as one in 1978 when NBC aired a show on the Holocaust and was sued by a group demanding air time to argue that the Holocaust was a myth. The network had to defend itself for over three years. — Barbara Comstock and Lanny Davis @ NRO
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[...] This might be regarded as a typical example of a politician complaining about press coverage, were it not for the history – here’s the Heritage Foundation in 1993 explaining the operation of the Fairness Doctrine and discussing efforts to revive it by legislation the last time Democrats controlled the White House and Congress, a 2005 article making some of the Left’s arguments for restoring it, and a 2008 talk with a current FCC Commissioner on how the Fairness Doctrine could make a comeback and be applied to the internet. More here and here. [...]
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