WASHINGTON, DC — The Fairness Doctrine, a controversial and now defunct Federal Communications Commission regulation, has reared its head again in partisan politics.The doctrine, which required broadcasters to incorporate contrasting views in their news and opinion programming (but did not require “equal time for contrasting views,” as it was often mischaracterized), was introduced in 1949. In 1967, portions of the doctrine were incorporated into FCC regulations. Although the doctrine was repealed in 1985 after a number of Supreme Court battles determined it actually hampered instead of encouraged free and open discourse, its specter arose from the dead at the intersection between the recent FCC-Comcast squabble and the looming presidential election.
Speaking before the conservative Business & Media Institute in Washington DC, FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell — a Republican appointed by President George W. Bush in 2006 — warned that a resurrection of the Fairness Doctrine could lead to “government dictating content policy” on the Web.
Conservative radio and television show hosts already had voiced concern that if the Fairness Doctrine is reinstated, it could all but destroy their industry.
McDowell, the lone FCC commissioner to vote against sanctioning Comcast for its practice of selectively throttling the internet bandwidth of customers using file-sharing tools like BitTorrent, indicated the FCC’s decision in the Comcast case smacked of Fairness Doctrine-era overregulation.
“I think the fear is that somehow large corporations will censor their content, their points of view, right,” McDowell told the audience. “I think the bigger concern for them should be if you have government dictating content policy, which by the way would have a big First Amendment problem, then whoever is in charge of government is going to determine what is fair, under a so-called ‘Fairness Doctrine,’ which won’t be called that. It’ll be called something else. So will websites, will bloggers have to give equal time or equal space on their website to opposing views rather than letting the marketplace of ideas determine that?”
McDowell also said the Fairness Doctrine hasn’t been reconsidered by the FCC under the current administration — but a change in leadership might precipitate a change in the FCC’s attitude.
“The Fairness Doctrine has not been raised at the FCC, but the importance of this election is in part… something to do with that,” he said. “So you know, this election, if it goes one way, we could see a re-imposition of the Fairness Doctrine. There is a discussion of it in Congress. I think it won’t be called the Fairness Doctrine by folks who are promoting it. I think it will be called something else, and I think it’ll be intertwined into the Net neutrality debate.”
