Fairness Doctrine

Fairness Doctrine

U.S. Broadcasting Policy

by Val E. Limburg

http://www.museum.tv/


The policy of the United States Federal Communications Commission that became known as the "Fairness Doctrine" is an attempt to ensure that all coverage of controversial issues by a broadcast station be balanced and fair. The FCC took the view, in 1949, that station licensees were "public trustees," and as such had an obligation to afford reasonable opportunity for discussion of contrasting points of view on controversial issues of public importance. The Commission later held that stations were also obligated to actively seek out issues of importance to their community and air programming that addressed those issues. With the deregulation sweep of the Reagan Administration during the 1980s, the Commission dissolved the fairness doctrine.

This doctrine grew out of concern that because of the large number of applications for radio station being submitted and the limited number of frequencies available, broadcasters should make sure they did not use their stations simply as advocates with a singular perspective. Rather, they must allow all points of view. That requirement was to be enforced by FCC mandate.

From the early 1940s, the FCC had established the "Mayflower Doctrine," which prohibited editorializing by stations. But that absolute ban softened somewhat by the end of the decade, allowing editorializing only if other points of view were aired, balancing that of the station's. During these years, the FCC had established dicta and case law guiding the operation of the doctrine.

In ensuing years the FCC ensured that the doctrine was operational by laying out rules defining such matters as personal attack and political editorializing (1967). In 1971 the Commission set requirements for the stations to report, with their license renewal, efforts to seek out and address issues of concern to the community. This process became known as "Ascertainment of Community Needs," and was to be done systematically and by the station management.

The fairness doctrine ran parallel to Section 315 of the Communications Act of 1937 which required stations to offer "equal opportunity" to all legally qualified political candidates for any office if they had allowed any person running in that office to use the station. The attempt was to balance--to force an even handedness. Section 315 exempted news programs, interviews and documentaries. But the doctrine would include such efforts. Another major difference should be noted here: Section 315 was federal law, passed by Congress. The fairness doctrine was simply FCC policy.

The FCC fairness policy was given great credence by the 1969 U.S. Supreme Court case of Red Lion Broadcasting Co., Inc. v. FCC. In that case, a station in Pennsylvania, licensed by Red Lion Co., had aired a "Christian Crusade" program wherein an author, Fred J. Cook, was attacked. When Cook requested time to reply in keeping with the fairness doctrine, the station refused. Upon appeal to the FCC, the Commission declared that there was personal attack and the station had failed to meet its obligation. The station appealed and the case wended its way through the courts and eventually to the Supreme Court. The court ruled for the FCC, giving sanction to the fairness doctrine.

The doctrine, nevertheless, disturbed many journalists, who considered it a violation of First Amendment rights of free speech/free press which should allow reporters to make their own decisions about balancing stories. Fairness, in this view, should not be forced by the FCC. In order to avoid the requirement to go out and find contrasting viewpoints on every issue raised in a story, some journalists simply avoided any coverage of some controversial issues. This "chilling effect" was just the opposite of what the FCC intended.

By the 1980s, many things had changed. The "scarcity" argument which dictated the "public trustee" philosophy of the Commission, was disappearing with the abundant number of channels available on cable TV. Without scarcity, or with many other voices in the marketplace of ideas, there were perhaps fewer compelling reasons to keep the fairness doctrine. This was also the era of deregulation when the FCC took on a different attitude about its many rules, seen as an unnecessary burden by most stations. The new Chairman of the FCC, Mark Fowler, appointed by President Reagan, publicly avowed to kill to fairness doctrine.

By 1985, the FCC issued its Fairness Report, asserting that the doctrine was no longer having its intended effect, might actually have a "chilling effect" and might be in violation of the First Amendment. In a 1987 case, Meredith Corp. v. FCC, the courts declared that the doctrine was not mandated by Congress and the FCC did not have to continue to enforce it. The FCC dissolved the doctrine in August of that year.

However, before the Commission's action, in the spring of 1987, both houses of Congress voted to put the fairness doctrine into law--a statutory fairness doctrine which the FCC would have to enforce, like it or not. But President Reagan, in keeping with his deregulatory efforts and his long-standing favor of keeping government out of the affairs of business, vetoed the legislation. There were insufficient votes to override the veto. Congressional efforts to make the doctrine into law surfaced again during the Bush administration. As before, the legislation was vetoed, this time by Bush.

The fairness doctrine remains just beneath the surface of concerns over broadcasting and cablecasting, and some members of congress continue to threaten to pass it into legislation. Currently, however, there is no required balance of controversial issues as mandated by the fairness doctrine. The public relies instead on the judgment of broadcast journalists and its own reasoning ability to sort out one-sided or distorted coverage of an issue. Indeed, experience over the past several years since the demise of the doctrine shows that broadcasters can and do provide substantial coverage of controversial issues of public importance in their communities, including contrasting viewpoints, through news, public affairs, public service, interactive and special programming.

 

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Fairness Doctrine

http://www.answers.com/

 

The doctrine that imposes affirmative responsibilities on a broadcaster to provide coverage of issues of public importance that is adequate and fairly reflects differing viewpoints. In fulfilling its fairness doctrine obligations, a broadcaster must provide free time for the presentation of opposing views if a paid sponsor is unavailable and must initiate programming on public issues if no one else seeks to do so.


Between the 1940s and 1980s, federal regulators attempted to guarantee that the broadcasting industry would act fairly. The controversial policy adopted to further that attempt was called the fairness doctrine. The fairness doctrine was not a statute, but a set of rules and regulations that imposed controls on the content of the broadcasting media. It viewed radio and television as not merely industries but servants of the public interest. Enforced by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the fairness doctrine had two main tenets: broadcasters had to cover controversial issues, and they had to carry contrasting viewpoints on such issues. Opponents of the doctrine, chiefly the media themselves, called it unconstitutional. Although it survived court challenges, the fairness doctrine was abolished in 1987 by deregulators in the FCC who deemed it outdated, misguided, and ultimately unfair. Its demise left responsibility for fairness entirely to the media.


The fairness doctrine grew out of early regulation of the radio industry. As the medium of radio expanded in the 1920s, its chaotic growth caused problems: for one, broadcasters often overlapped on each other's radio frequencies. In 1927, Congress imposed regulation with its passage of the Radio Act (47 U.S.C.A. § 81 et seq.). This landmark law established the Federal Radio Commission (FRC), reestablished in 1934 as the Federal Communications Commission. Empowered to allocate frequencies among broadcasters, the FRC essentially decided who could broadcast, and its mandate to do so contained the seeds of the fairness doctrine. The commission was not only to divvy up the limited number of bands on the radio dial; Congress said it was to do so according to public "convenience, interest, or necessity." Radio was seen as a kind of public trust: individual stations had to meet public expectations in return for access to the nation's airwaves.


In 1949, the first clear definition of the fairness doctrine emerged. The FCC said, in its Report on Editorializing, "[T]he public interest requires ample play for the free and fair competition of opposing views, and the commission believes that the principle applies to all discussion of issues of importance to the public." The doctrine had two parts: it required broadcasters (1) to cover vital controversial issues in the community and (2) to provide a reasonable opportunity for the presentation of contrasting viewpoints. In time, additional rules were added. The so-called personal attack rule required broadcasters to allow opportunity for rebuttal to personal attacks made during the discussion of controversial issues. The "political editorializing" rule held that broadcasters who endorsed a candidate for political office had to give the candidate's opponent a reasonable opportunity to respond.


Enforcement was controversial. Complaints alleging violations of the fairness doctrine were to be filed with the FCC by individuals and organizations, such as political parties and unions. Upon review of the complaint, the FCC could take punitive action that included refusing to renew broadcasting licenses. Not surprisingly, radio and TV station owners resented this regulatory power. They grumbled that the print media never had to bear such burdens. The fairness doctrine, they argued, infringed upon their First Amendment rights. By the late 1960s, a First Amendment challenge reached the U.S. Supreme Court, in Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, 395 U.S. 367, 89 S. Ct. 1794, 23 L. Ed. 2d 371 (1969). The Court upheld the constitutionality of the doctrine in a decision that only added to the controversy. The print and broadcast media were inherently different, it ruled. In the broadcast media, the Court said, "it is the right of the viewers and listeners, not the right of the broadcasters, which is paramount it is the right of the public to receive suitable access to social, political, esthetic, moral, and other ideas and experiences which is crucial here."


Although the fairness doctrine remained in effect for almost two more decades following Red Lion, the 1980s saw its abolishment. Antiregulatory fervor in the administration of President Ronald Reagan brought about its end. The administration, which staffed the FCC with its appointees, favored little or no restrictions on the broadcast industry. In its 1985 Fairness Report (102 F.C.C.2d 145), the FCC announced that the doctrine hurt the public interest and violated the First Amendment. Moreover, technology had changed: with the advent of multiple channels on cable television, no longer could broadcasting be seen as a limited resource. Two years later, in August 1987, the commission abolished the doctrine by a 4-0 vote, intending to extend to radio and tele- vision the same First Amendment protections guaranteed to the print media. Congress had tried to stop the FCC from killing the fairness doctrine. Two months earlier, it had sent President Reagan the Fairness in Broadcasting Act of 1987 (S. 742, 100th Cong., 1st Sess. [1987]), which would have codified the doctrine in federal law. The president vetoed it.
President Reagan's veto of the 1987 congressional bill to establish the fairness doctrine as law did not end the controversy, however. Even into the mid-1990s, proponents continued to call for its reinstatement.


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