Yet Another Reminder That, Actually, Reagan Sucked

[filkertom]

Sure wish we had regs like this. We used to, until Reagan eliminated the Fairness Doctrine. That's a good deal of the reason why right-wing media are against it, even though at this point there's no movement to restore it. Of course, they are pretty good at preemptive demonizing.

(h/t huskiebear)

Comments

[phillip2637.livejournal.com]

I was doing OK until I got the the line: "Political dialogue in Canada is marked by civility, modesty, honesty, collegiality, and idealism". I think the author's time machine is set for forty years in the past.

[greenlantern-oa.livejournal.com]

Came in to say the same thing.

[zibblsnrt.livejournal.com]

Yeah, considering the recent attempt to make it alright for media to lie outright so long as it doesn't physically endanger anyone, to say nothing of our last several election campaigns, that line caught me as a little naive.

[zibblsnrt.livejournal.com]

(...I don't really think anyone can tell me that the former wasn't intended primarily to make politics nastier up here than they already are, either. :P )

[smparadox.livejournal.com]

It was intended to allow the dominant party to create a Canadian version of Fox, called Sun TV.

[smparadox.livejournal.com]

The Rick Mercer Report had a rant about something that a Canadian politician said recently, which illustrates the current state of political dialogue:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yV-o-qJF17o
And I can think of quite a few politicians on either side of the border that his recommendation sounds pretty good for...

[alverant.livejournal.com]

I don't know. As much as I hate to agree with tgnf (our resident anarchist), the Fairness Doctrine was a bad idea. The idea was that if you presented one side, you had to present the other. That's why TV in the 50s was bland and as edgy as a dull spoon. I'm all for news channels actually presenting news and being as unbias as possible (or at least not deliberately slanting things so badly it drives people to murder). But requiring shows to prevent other sides of an issue just to be fair... That just goes too far. So a science show about the history of Earth would have to include creationism. A documentary about WWII would have to include a holocaust denier. I don't want to think about what a sitcom with a homosexual character would have to do.

Not all sides have to be presented. Not all sides are worth presenting. Not all sides are equal in credibility. The problem is who decides what those sides are?

[realinterrobang.livejournal.com]

That's an invalid comparison. The Fairness Doctrine never applied to things like science shows. It applied to political discourse, meaning that if you presented a show on politics sponsored by a right-winger, you had to give a left-winger equal (response) time. I'm Canadian, but I'm also old enough to remember American tv prior to 1980, and you certainly didn't have Holocaust deniers rebutting shows on WWII.

Here in Canada we at least used to have rules requiring broadcasters to give all major political parties equal amounts of time during campaigns, which usually meant you got at least three different perspectives on things.

[alverant.livejournal.com]

The problem is these days many people think science is "just another opinion" and would consider the Fairness Doctrine to apply to it, especially when it comes to matters of religion. Remember the push by creationists to force science teachers to give alternatives to evolution (even though it was just ONE alternative)?

[holzman.livejournal.com]

I remember them being laughed out of court. We do not set policy based on how wingnuts will try to twist it, or we would never set any policy.

[kengr]

They didn't get laughed out of the school board meetings. And got elected to the state groups that select textbooks. Especially in Texas, which means that most textbooks *do* cater to them, so they'll get selected for that *huge* market. And the rest of us are stuck with it.

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

Was TV in the 70s and 80s that bland, too? Because we had the Fairness Doctrine then.

And it applied to advocacy TV, only, not to science shows or fiction.

[alverant.livejournal.com]

There's a matter of it being law and a matter of it being enforced. There was still little controversy on the TV even during the 80s. In 1969 the Supreme Court said the FCC wasn't obligated to enforce the rules in places where there were multiple choices of viewing.

[emiofbrie.livejournal.com]

Eh, the fairness doctrine sucked IMHO, but Canada's law specifically applies to news programming. I have no problem with saying if you market your show as "news" you're not allowed to lie, but the FairDoc was way too broad, and would have required, for example, NATEBOI to present both sides of hatever he rants about. That would be uncalled for IMHO.

[tcgtrf.livejournal.com]

Wow, Alverant, the first time I've seen you agree with a position I might have and I have to put qualifications on it.

I am fully in agreement with the Canadian law insofar that it forbids "lying" on news broadcasts. In my opinion, fraud should be one of the only "verbal crimes" that governments should be allowed to enforce, because the basis of a free society is in its citizens' honest and fair discourse as much as it is in their honest and fair business dealings.

I disagree with the Fairness Doctrine because the way it enforced the airwaves revolved around "Opinion", rather than "Fact." While data on things described by physical sciences, subject to public record, or recorded by legal witnesses can be considered fact (even though some people still don't believe in rapid natural climate change, Obama's birthplace, or a historical Jesus), virtually everything else is a matter of opinion--something that both NPR and Fox have taken advantage of over the last 25 years.

A new Fairness Doctrine would impact right-wing talk radio, of course, but it would just as quickly put Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann (hell, probably Al Gore's entire network) out of business.

The best way to overcome bias and fallacies from others is to fearlessly and logically challenge that bias and those fallacies at every opportunity. It may not make you many friends, but it certainly allows you to sleep well at night.

Tom Trumpinski

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

Seems to me, it would not put Maddow and Olbermann out of business. It would require them and Rush/Beck/Coulter/Hannity/rest of the right wing brigade or their equivalents to appear on the same networks.

[tcgtrf.livejournal.com]

No, it wouldn't work like that because the broadcast and cable networks have advertisers.

The kind of advertisers who support Rush Limbaugh would burn their money rather than spend it on a show with Keith Olbermann on it. It goes the other way--the companies that would support Rachel Maddow would disband before they'd spend their advertising cash on a show with Glenn Beck.

This is why right-wing radio is so much more successful than Air America--the advertisers who put their money behind conservatives have much, much deeper pockets.

Tom Trumpinski

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

Right. That's why there was no advertising on television prior to the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine in the late 1980s. (eyeroll)

Most likely, they wouldn't have left and right on the same show very often. They'd have different, equal and opposite shows, and people could support whatever ideology they wanted. Then again, if they *did* decide to have a steel cage match show where the heavyweight partisans on both sides of an issue ripped into each other, I'd expect it would have soaring ratings and have no shortage of support from advertisers who care more about, you know, consumers seeing their product than about whether the show agrees with them about abortion or whatever.

[alverant.livejournal.com]

Except as you said it separates "opinion" from "fact" and last I checked Maddow, Olberman, and Gore dealt in facts instead of the opinions of Faux News. Facts are considered "just another opinion" when it contracts their religion or politics. It doesn't matter what kind of evidence you provide, nothing with convince them. Man-made climate change is an established fact but many people still deny it since they don't like who's saying it for example.

And at least NPR has taken greater steps to 1) present multiple sides of the issue and 2) not engaged in the blatant bias and convenient "honest mistakes" the right wing media has done.

[tcgtrf.livejournal.com]

Man-made climate change is very, very limited--it's the sort of thing that you find where cities act like mountain ranges because of the heat they produce.

The general background warming of the planet is due to our coming out of an Ice Age--remember, 10,000 years ago there was a mile-thick ice sheet where you live. For most of the last billion years, the planet's temperature has been higher than it is now.

Despite these *facts*, which any paleontologist can describe to you in detail, people still confuse global warming with man-made climate change. Al Gore is first on that list, so I have to include him with those who are unclear on their facts.

Tom Trumpinski

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

One would think that the Democrats, if they were interested in remaining in the majority, would have made re-establishment of the Fairness Doctrine their first priority as soon as they had complete control of the legislature and the White House.

The fact that they didn't even try, and went out of their way to empower the powerless Republican opposition would indicate that they were NOT interested in retaining the majority. In fact, they went out of their way to kick it away, watering down their own achievements and then hiding from them instead of shouting out their benefits. Why would they do that?

I've had a ridiculous notion for a while now that Democrats in the Federal government have made an agreement to pretend to disagree with Republicans and to accept permanent minority party status, offering token, ineffective opposition to the GOP agenda while letting it through every time. Given the way they spent two years of full control acting like they were begging for forgiveness for fucking up by actually winning so heavily, maybe it's not so ridiculous after all.

[lemmozine.livejournal.com]

]Like[

[nagasvoice.livejournal.com]

I have an even more absurd notion that the Democrats in office (not newly elected) were already deeply beholden to fairly concentrated corporate powers, and I'm not talking George Soros here. More like coal state Dems voting against cleaning up smokestacks, kind of stuff. So they didn't change what they were doing, except to run more committees as chair persons.
Many of us were pretty sure of this, by then, but at least it seemed like a better chance at a few progressive accomplishments instead of the utter and complete middle-class slide into the dumpster otherwise on offer at that time. I believe we're now seeing the dumpster flapping its lid in a threatening manner, and I for one don't like it one bit.
Haven't had a chance to go see how the protesters are doing in WI tonight, as yet.

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

Still waiting for Fox News to add a Trotskyist to their commentariat, for fairness and balance.

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

They consider alan colmes to be a Trotskyist

[sethb.livejournal.com]

It was never illegal to lie on the news.