FAIRNESS DOCTRINE

“At first the liberal Democrats were coy about reports that they wanted to impose government control on talk radio. When it was reported that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton had discussed the matter with Sen. Barbara Boxer, both denied it. That is characteristic. They lied to the public. Now the Democrats admit to this assault on the First Amendment. There was no point in continuing to lie when it was time to take action against the Rush Limbaughs of this world...Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin [said], ‘It’s time to reinstitute the Fairness Doctrine. I have this old-fashioned attitude that when Americans hear both sides of the story, they’re in a better position to make a decision.’ Well, at least he admits that he is old-fashioned. Unfortunately for him, history really has moved on. The so-called Fairness Doctrine, used for years to keep diversity off the airways, was instituted when all we had in the communications system was radio and fledgling television. Perhaps in those days it was admissible to believe that there were only two sides to a ‘story,’ as Durbin puts it. Today there are many sides to stories, and no government body is equipped to judge what should be on the broadcast media and what is too marginal. In other words, it ought not to be left to government to decide what the sides are in a debate. That is anathema to free debate.”

—Emmett Tyrrell

“The framers of the First Amendment, confident that public debate would be freer and healthier without the kind of interference represented by the ‘fairness doctrine,’ chose to forbid such regulations in the clearest terms: ‘Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.’... History has shown that the dangers of an overly timid or biased press cannot be averted through bureaucratic regulation, but only through the freedom and competition that the First Amendment sought to guarantee. [The ‘fairness doctrine’] simply cannot be reconciled with the freedom of speech and the press secured by our Constitution. It is, in my judgment, unconstitutional. Well-intentioned as [the ‘fairness doctrine’] may be, it would be inconsistent with the First Amendment and with the American tradition of independent journalism.”

—Ronald Reagan