Limiting political debate
May 27, 2007| By Nathaniel Ward
Liberal proposals to reinstate the so-called “Fairness Doctrine” would make for bad policy and violate the Constitution, Heritage regulation expert James Gattuso writes in an important new Heritage paper.
Liberals who seek to restore this “deeply unfair” policy, he explains, “are frankly concerned about the amount of ‘conservative’ programming, especially in talk radio, and would like to see a different balance.” And this balance would, of course, be enforced by big-government bureaucrats.
The Fairness Doctrine was a government regulation, repealed in 1987, that mandated that the media consider political issues in a “fair” manner. It’s effect, though, was to limit political debate—and to keep conservative talk radio off the air. “It’s no coincidence that such media as talk radio—virtually non-existent while the rule was in place—flowered after its repeal,” Gattuso writes.
The whole premise of the regulation is flawed, he concludes. “It is simply not the job of politicians to ‘correct’ the mix of opinions being expressed in the marketplace of ideas, even if—and especially if—they disagree with those opinions.” And that means the Fairness Doctrine must remain in what he calls the “regulatory dustbin.”
Nathaniel Ward is the Editor of MyHeritage.org—a website for members and supporters of The Heritage Foundation.
