Would reinstituting the Fairness Doctrine change anything?

FCC was the regulator. The doctrine was somewhat narrow and applied to broadcast over public spectrum (radio waves spectrum licensed by the gov to private entities). Today, I guess that would apply to cellular network, AM/FM radio and over-the-air TV stations.

 

This is the evolution of news since Reagan did away with the Fairness Doctrine. The doctrine would only apply to broadcast TV and not cable TV though. Unfortunately instead of doing away with it because "free speech", they should have extended it to all media. All of the typical Republican free speech arguments ie hate speech, money in politics, corporations are people, are a death knell for democracy.

 

The fairness doctrine would help a bit. So would returning to past laws that did not allow an individual or small group to buy up huge numbers of AM radio stations (iirc Sinclair or a similar right wing organization owns roughly 800 of these stations nationally to put out the same message). No entity could own say the major newspaper, the main radio stations and main TV stations in a given market.

Local newspapers have gone out of business all over the country due to the monopolists facebook and google scarfing up a large amount of the advertising that used to fund them. So support for them as is done in other democracies should be taken.

More intense neutral civics education about how government works should be required.

More support for sources like NPR which are not controlled directly by billionaires.

Not allowing the rich and corporations to essentially bribe politicians to do their bidding. Controlling money in elections and reversing Citizen's United.

It is no coincidence that about 40 years ago, with the exception of government support for local newspapers all these measures were more or less in place. It has taken 40 years for these effects to become so blatant.

 

It would Reign in Fox, Oann, and NewsMax. As much as the right likes to b**** about CNN, it tries to do middle but does lean to the left as a balance to Fox. CNN wouldn't have an issue.

 

it would never survive a court challenge today. The Supreme Court would obliterate any attempt to reinstitute it. The fairness doctrine is just a relic of a different era of government regulations and a court system that was much more open to that sort of thing. The current court would just strike it down immediately on first amendment grounds.

Plus the reality is that the largest single media source today is social media (primarily facebook) which would be untouched by reimplementation of the fairness doctrine.

You need a much more liberal supreme court to ever have a chance at something like this.

 

I've thought about this as well and I guess there could be a weak application by targeting "regulating broadband frequencies".

My hazy and possibly inaccurate recollection of why FCC regulated broadcast is because they owned the air (spectrum) that radio and tv broadcasted over and could take away that right just as they could yank away a pilot's right to fly in American airspace. Cable TV fought for the right to be indecent and won while broadcast had their hands tied. Government used other tricks to rein in basic cable, but that's a different tangent...

Obviously, regulating internet transmission through ultra high frequencies is a privacy nightmare and what does that apply to cable/copper/fiber-optic users?(nada)

So the original fairness doctrine was a regulatory trick i principle, much like how the government was able to enforce a speed limit or legal age for alcohol (matching funding for highways).

In order to pull off a similar mind trick, it would have to alter current internet laws (overdue update), specifically on the front of who owns the medium ISPs transmit over (much harder as stated before), what's considered a "broadcaster" and who allows that broadcaster the right to transmit their media (goes entirely against the principle of a "free and egalitarian" internet).

They'll likely sidestep that issue and put hard pressure on the tech oligarchs that handles 95% of all social media traffic. They already have done so with secret court orders in the name of national security. The inroads are there. Just need to bulldoze a front door without caving in the whole building.

 

It’s pretty costly to produce two different contents.

Today all the “broadcasters” stream the same content over different medium (cable, satellite, radio).

In theory, content streaming over high freq radio (aka “mobile” internet ) would be subjected to this regulation, if enacted again. If so, “broadcaster” would need create two different set of content (very expensive) or adhere to the doctrine for all medium.

Might be worth a try.

 

The Fairness Doctrine was less about providing both side (major news networks usually do this. A panel of 4 guys screaming over each other) and more about preventing conglomerates from monopolizing certain modes of transmission. AM radio was an example. Talk radio was not a big hit with democrats which led to the erosion of the Fairness Doctrine.

Fairness Doctrine would not solve anything now. Social media sites specifically built their platforms to skirt this issue. They claim no responsibility for content posted.

The good news is the tech companies are pressuring Congress to enact laws ... but to protect them from the states. Biden will be addressing this issue. I don't think anything meaningful will come of it TBH.

Personally I believe we need to regulate bloggers who pose as journalist. The idea of reposting stories and changing to deceptive clickbait titles needs to end. News sites are spammed with garbage across the board.
I would suggest anyone who wants to be recognized as a journalist to be certified. Algorithms would then be forced to ignore any media content that is not from a certified journalist. Users would be allowed to propagate whatever content they wish and platforms would be allowed to censor to their discretion.

Please! Do something about Twitter. Its the culmination of idiocracy.