James Frank Solís

15 May 2007

3:16 PM

Consistent with declaring an end to debates over matters with public policy implications, the left are now moving to re-institute the fairness doctrine. (H/T: Hugh Hewitt blog.) Another interesting move for people who claim to support freedom of speech and expression.

Two provisions of the doctrine which always concerned me in the past were the personal attack rule and the political editorial rule. The personal attack rule required anyone "attacked" over the airwaves to be notified beforehand and given an opportunity to respond. The political editorial rule required that a broadcaster endorsing one political candidate or issue had to give similar time for a response from those not endorsed or supported. They may seem reasonable, but in practical effect it really put an end to much of broadcast speech. Let’s face it, to contact every person you are going to “attack” is pretty time consuming, assuming we possess a reasonable definition of "attack" (hopefully something other than rebuttal, or analysis). And so it is to make sure that every one with a position different from you own gets equal time. It's not like there are only two possible positions. Far easier just to play music that no body really listens to anyway. Like back in the 70s. Boy, those were the days I can tell you.

Fairness requirements are free speech. That’s the American left. Doing things like putting an effective muzzle on speech in the name of speech while pretending to be inveterate lovers of liberty. Only the Ministry of Truth could do it better. Maybe.

It may be possible to have “fairness” in speech. I doubt it. But let’s not pretend that we can have government bureaucracy-enforced “fair” speech and “free” speech at the same time.

Labels: Culture, Government, Media, Politics, Society

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