Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is hinting at reinstating the Fairness Doctrine, and many of her liberal colleagues in Congress are doing the same in both chambers. Alleging the press isn’t balanced, they say government should be making sure all viewpoints, meaning the lefts, are fairly represented. I agree the press isn’t balanced, but Mrs. Pelosi has it backward; liberalism dominates the press, including the three major TV networks, PBS, NPR on radio, and most major newspapers. Liberal radio has failed in every market it has been tried, even with Democrat money paying to broadcast. In the arena of ideas they just can't compete in the open market.Though originally the Fairness Doctrine did not require opposing time be equal, it came to be the standard. The concern at the time was the prevention of a single viewpoint from dominating the news and biasing the people. By the 1980s, there were many radio and TV stations available. And many believed the Fairness Doctrine was unconstitutional in any event. So in 1987, Ronald Reagan’s Federal Communications Commission repealed the Fairness Doctrine, opening every press outlet to freely decide what content to carry. The Democrat-controlled Congress at the time passed legislation to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine, but President Reagan vetoed the bill. This led to the birth of talk radio. The doctrine’s reinstatement would kill conservative talk radio, and the Democrats know it. Radio stations that carry Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck and others would have to create liberal shows of equal length. And when those shows fail to make money and the stations take a loss, their only option in canceling those shows would be to cancel the conservative shows as well. Free speech would lose. Americans would lose.
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