The Tyranny of Fairness

Perhaps it was inevitable that, with the ascendance of a powerful new Democratic majority in Congress, the putrid carcass of the so-called “Fairness Doctrine” would rise again. This policy, originally established by the Federal Communications Commission in 1949, mandated that the federal government enforce a balance of political viewpoints expressed via the medium of radio broadcast. For nearly four decades, this flagrant violation of the First Amendment was the law of the land; it was finally repealed during the Reagan years. Since then, the left has made intermittent attempts to revive the doctrine, but—thankfully—it has not yet succeeded.

Recently, however, an emboldened tide of Democratic partisans, including former President Bill Clinton, Iowa Senator Tom Harkin, and Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow, have once more called for the doctrine’s resurrection. President Obama and the Senate, on the other hand, have wisely come out against re-imposing this “balance” to the airwaves.

Aside from the political history involved, there is a good reason that the doctrine has never been reinstated. For a policy that trumpets its supposed objectivity, it has drawn conspicuously little bipartisan support. Few Republicans ever have or ever will come out in favor of the doctrine, for it has a highly partisan objective—the muzzling of conservative talk radio.

Some promoters of this folly claim that their stake in its reinstatement consists of the elevation of our public discourse by giving both sides of any issue a fair trial in the public square. This is indeed a noble pursuit. Certain hypocrisies, however, expose the true motives of the doctrine’s supporters.

For starters, the only medium that they ever wish to see put under the yoke of the doctrine’s jurisdiction is talk radio. This singling out of a particular form of media seems arbitrary, but it takes little time or effort to discover what makes radio different from print, television, and the Internet: its domination by the right wing. Indeed, one never sees liberals calling for the Fairness Doctrine to be applied to the opinion page of the New York Times, MSNBC, or the blogosphere; the dearth of right-wing commentary in these outlets is not a mere coincidence. Moreover, one cannot even claim that the justification for this selectivity is the distinction between editorial and news content, for the reactionary bloviators of talk radio make no bones about their political opinions.

Now, some liberals will openly admit that they wish to curb conservatives’ supremacy on the airwaves, insisting that the right has an unfair structural advantage. Liberal radio host Bill Press is one of these, as he demonstrated in an interview with Senator Tom Harkin: “You know, we’re not going to take any of the conservative voices off the airwaves, but just make sure that there are a few progressives and liberals out there, right?”

Press correctly points out that the doctrine does not entail censorship, but government meddling in broadcasting content for reasons other than slander or obscenity is still unconstitutional. Press’s premise, moreover, is farcical: Talk radio operates under the rules of the free market system. There is no structural advantage for conservatives; they just happen to flourish in this realm. Nothing is hindering liberals from talk radio success other than their lack of appeal to talk-radio’s conservative-leaning audience, just as conservatives struggle to prosper in the liberal dominions of print media, the Internet, and late-night television comedy.

But even if one were to take Doctrinaires at their word and assume that they solely desire the elevation of public discourse, and even if one were to ignore the unconstitutionality of the means to this end, a critical flaw still lingers. If the FCC is given the authority to dictate what constitutes “balanced” coverage of the issues, then the FCC is given dominion over the definition of “balanced.” There are far more than only two sides to every debate, and yet the assumption goes that the FCC would only stipulate that conventional liberal and conventional conservative paradigms be represented.

The doctrine’s opacity grants the FCC enormous powers, as it will be able to dictate which viewpoints are legitimate enough for coverage, which would lead to one of two outcomes. Either the FCC would grant every viewpoint equal time, which clearly defies practicality, or it would grant only a handful of viewpoints equal time, which clearly defies “fairness.”

Opposing the Fairness Doctrine does not make one an apologist for the rotund regent of the right wing, Rush Limbaugh. The real issue here is the violation of free speech entailed by such regulation of opinion. No matter the objectives of its well-intentioned supporters, the chilling effects of the Fairness Doctrine are clear and unambiguous.


Dhruv K. Singhal ’12, a Crimson editorial writer, lives in Straus Hall.