The airwaves today are relatively free of political commercials, for the first time in months (at least in Virginia, where I live). I’ll admit, it’s nice to imagine that the next time I turn on the radio I’m more likely to hear someone trying to sell me a car, mutual funds, or aspirin than a candidate.
Not so nice to imagine, however, is turning on the radio and not being able to hear radio hosts discussing politics because a government in charge of establishing "fairness" over the airwaves have made it so onerous and unprofitable to air popular political talk radio hosts that most stations simply give up and adopt a different format.
Unfortunately, today we are reminded that opponents of the First Amendment are all too eager to bring back the UnFairness Doctrine, an Orwellian attempt to enforce politicians’ and bureaucrats’ preferences about who should be allowed to speak, for how long, and on what topic on the air.
The Hill reports today the comments of Senator Charles Schumer of New York, pining away for the return of the doctrine that allowed past presidents to silence and intimidate many of their political opponents.
From the article:
Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Tuesday defended the so-called Fairness Doctrine in an interview on Fox News, saying, "I think we should all be fair and balanced, don’t you?"
…Asked if he is a supporter of telling radio stations what content they should have, Schumer used the fair and balanced line, claiming that critics of the Fairness Doctrine are being inconsistent.
"The very same people who don’t want the Fairness Doctrine want the FCC [Federal Communications Commission] to limit pornography on the air. I am for that… But you can’t say government hands off in one area to a commercial enterprise but you are allowed to intervene in another. That’s not consistent."
I suppose that since the New York Times is subject to various health, occupational, and safety regulations, the good Senator would assert it is inconsistent to intervene in these areas but demand that government keep its hands off the news and editorial departments?
The article goes on to note that "Conservatives fear that forcing stations to make equal time for liberal talk radio would cut into profits so significantly that radio executives would opt to scale back on conservative radio programming to avoid escalating costs and interference from the FCC."
As noted above, that’s one concern some might have. A more important concern, shared by conservatives, liberals, moderates, libertarians, and others, is that it violates the First Amendment and amounts to government censorship of political speech. Seems worth mentioning.
