The Fairness Scare
Marin Cogan has a great piece on the right-wing’s mobilization against the phantom menace of the fairness doctrine:
On Election Day, conservatives found a new bogeyman in Senator Chuck Schumer, after Fox News host Bill Hemmer cornered him about the issue on the air. Schumer just smirked: “I think we should all try to be fair and balanced, don’t you?” Rush Limbaugh seized on Schumer’s comments as evidence that the Democrats would “do everything they can” to bring the doctrine back. Two days after the election, National Review’s Peter Kirsanow tried to rally the troops to preempt the return of the policy. “Waiting until Inauguration Day to get geared up is too late. By that time the Fairness Doctrine Express will be at full steam–wavering Democrats will be pressed to support the new Democratic president, weak-kneed Republicans will want to display comity, the mainstream media will not be saddened to see talk radio annihilated and much of the public will be too enraptured by Obama’s Camelot inauguration to notice or care.”
To figure out who was causing such agitation, I went searching for the proponents of the fairness doctrine. I looked at Obama’s position–and it turns out that he doesn’t want the policy reinstated. Then I called the array of Democratic congressmen who had been tagged by conservatives as doctrine proponents. But they all denied any intention to push for its reinstatement. As some of the world’s great egotists, it’s not surprising that Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly believe they would be the first political prisoners interred in an Obama administration. But, the more I searched for actual evidence of the doctrine’s return, the more I had to conclude that Schumer was just messing with their heads.
It’s very strange. Political movements mischaracterize the other side’s general goals all the time. But I’ve never heard of anything like the current conservative mania for blocking a particular legislative provision that nobody is trying to enact.
52 Responses to “The Fairness Scare”
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November 20th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
…and when the FD is neither reintroduced nor reinstated, they will beat their chests and proclaim victory after steadfastly staring down the enemy.
November 20th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
The conservative hype against the fairness doctrine might backfire. Since it doesn’t seem to have any political repercussions, some people who never seriously thought about it one way or another might decide they’d like to bring it back.
November 20th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
Mike has it right. Score another one for the mighty blogosphere!
November 20th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
It’s not too strange if you think of the paranoia and sense of a persecuted righteous few on the far right. And it’s not too strange if you think of the right’s strategy of always creating a new enemy to mobilize the faithful, whether it’s gay marriage or Obama the terrorist.
However, this is different, in that it’s not just counter to the facts but seems pulled out of nowhere. So may I suggest a third factor: it’s a deliberate red herring. They’re afraid of reversal of deregulation in many, many ways. One of them might be the Telecommunications Act and the monopoly of voices it set loose. But whether that does or doesn’t come up, they can frame the subject as, see, they’re trying to silence us. That’s what regulation and big government do!
November 20th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
One theory: by making a big deal about this, the right-wing gas bags are setting themselves up to (a) be seen as prescient in their predictions about Democratic over-reach or, more likely, to (b) claim that Democrats were in fact cowed by the mighty power of the talk radio hacks. Either way they “win” without actually doing anything.
November 20th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
I think President Obama should not only push for reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine, but issue an executive order prohibiting any Executive Branch political appointee from ever talking to anyone from the Fox News Channel.
Let’s face it, Obama could nuke Iran, and he would still get reamed day after day on talk radio and Fox.
November 20th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
Yet another embarrassingly stupid post from MattY.
Most people agree the “FD” isn’t coming back, however, BHO is on record as supporting something that would have a similar impact, known as “localism”.
Another discussion of that here: reason.com/news/show/129228.html
And, from 2007, see this.
Note that the group MattY works for is pushing “localism”, and note also that I linked the first and last articles here starting about a week ago.
Tell me again why anyone reads MattY? Just for the embarrassing mistakes like this?
November 20th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
People Read MattY because he demonstrates a command of the issues that self-promoting idiot racists can never have. The dimwitted troll who asked should change his handle from “StupidRacist.com” to the even more accurate “EmbarrassinglyStupidRacist.com”
November 20th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
I don’t understand. what’s so bad about fairness?
November 20th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
I don’t understand. Whats so bad about fairness?
Godforbid we have a civil, informed public discourse that allows everyside of an issue an equal chance to make their arguments…
November 20th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
I think it was a genius move by Schumer to give the puppies something to chew on for a while, before they can damage the couch.
November 20th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
I’m delighted the Right is putting time and energy into preparing for a huge fight over the Fairness Doctrine instead of wasting their time thinking about side issues like health care, global warming, etc. Wouldn’t we on the left feel stupid if we were to win on those inconsequential issues and got trounced on FCC regulation of opinion? Please don’t throw me into that briar patch.
November 20th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
Like JB, I’m a little puzzled by the way everyone laughs off the idea of reinstituting the Fairness Doctrine. The airwaves are public property, right? They aren’t just there to give media barons a chance to make money, right? Why shouldn’t the holders of what amount to licenses to print money be required to pay at least lip service to the idea of public service? I’m old enough to remember what raido was like before the FD was removed, and it wasn’t ideal but neither was it a Bedlam of Rush Limbaugh wannabes.
November 20th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Ha! Nice little piece of baiting by Schumer.
And Matt, read any rightwinger on gun control and what it comes down to is that they think that liberals are trying to steal their guns. That’s how they roll.
November 20th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
War on Christmas? Welfare Queens? Letting troops run out of ammo while still on the battlefield? Gays trying to “convert” 5 year olds (or whatever)? Black Helicopters? Or, to be a bit provocative, the odds of any individual being subject to a terrorist attack (say somebody who lives in Moblie, Alabama)?
Where are the (non-white) terrorists trying to attack the Bible Belt?
Conservativism itself–as a “philosophy”–is based upon almost entirely imaginary fears of the other. That’s what riles up the rubes.
November 20th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
Considering that “Fair and Balanced” is Fox News’ slogon, it’s pretty obvious that Chuckles was just using a little dry humor to zing Hemmer.
November 20th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
I think the reason behind this is the fact that the level of coordination between right wing radio and the republican party reached unprecedented intimacy this election.
I’m not sure, but I think that Rush et al are terrified of being investigated and found to be in violation of campaign finance law.
The squawking about the fairness doctrine is the usual GOP/CIA/Rove preemptive muddy the waters technique.
November 20th, 2008 at 4:27 pm
One theory: by making a big deal about this, the right-wing gas bags are setting themselves up to (a) be seen as prescient in their predictions about Democratic over-reach or, more likely, to (b) claim that Democrats were in fact cowed by the mighty power of the talk radio hacks. Either way they “win” without actually doing anything.
I don’t mean to single you out here, Lex. But I’m amused by all the speculation that I read about this being some kind of clever rightwing trick, when the growing mountain of evidence clearly indicates that the people fighting the FD are genuine morons who wouldn’t know political strategy from their own talking assholes.
As such, I submit that they’re fighting the reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine because they genuinely feel that this is the big issue of the day and an important threat that they must face.
November 20th, 2008 at 4:31 pm
I hope they continue to waste time, and effort on this kind of BS. Hooray for our team. The GOP is out tilting v. windmills.
November 20th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
No disagreement with you strannix. But why attribute something to stupidity when it can be attributed to conspiracy– otherwise we would not have the internets.
November 20th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
Matt,
This is a classic agency problem. I have seen no reason to believe that the average politically active conservative cares at all about this. But the vast majority of conservatives who have their own TV and radio shows care about this issue more than any other issue — without it, they might lose their jobs! In a similar vein, while the odds of the Fairness Doctrine returning are low, the transaction costs of attacking it are even lower — after all, they already have the air time, so they might as well use it.
November 20th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
I love it. We should continue to casually mention FD and force them to negotiate on other issues in exchange for us not passing something that we really don’t care that much about.
November 20th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
Great…anti-FD but also there is a clear “liberal media bias”
November 20th, 2008 at 5:20 pm
I wish there was a “Democrats will reinstate the fairness doctrine” stock at intrade.com, so all the people parroting this nonsense could be challenged to put some money on their predictions (and there probably would be a decent number of people betting it would happen, so betting against it would be easy money for the rest of us).
November 20th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
But I’m amused by all the speculation that I read about this being some kind of clever rightwing trick,
It’s not “clever”– it’s just SOP: get the audience really, really pissed off about something, anything to work them into a froth.
November 20th, 2008 at 8:25 pm
Google “Fairness Doctrine” and “Net Neutrality”.
24PinDotMatrix or whatever and corporate shills like Reason aren’t the only one using “Fairness Doctrine” as a bludgeon to defend the privileges of current license holders as opposed to the public interest or open markets. Any FCC regulation whatsoever designed for the public interest–the whole point of having a publicly regulated spectrum–is, in their eyes, a “Fairness Doctrine”.
It’s also worth noting that this is (or at least was) something of an intra-conservative fight. Some right-wing groups like the NRA were arguing for ownership limits for broadcasts. Talk radio of course hates this, but their listeners, being populist conservatives, have sympathies for the small and the local. To get their listeners to rally for homogeniety and insularity, they needed to find the right code words. “Fairness Doctrine” is exactly that–it makes localism, community, small business, competition and innovation sound like Communism, Affirmative Action, Welfare and Speech Codes.
November 20th, 2008 at 8:35 pm
The liberals are coming to take away anything good that didn’t come from liberals to begin with. That means guns and talk radio.
November 20th, 2008 at 9:56 pm
I’m good with this, the right wing can win the War against the Fairness Doctrine and the War against Christmas and whatever stupid fucking thing they imagine they are fighting. Whatever keeps them busy and out of office.
November 20th, 2008 at 10:19 pm
This right-wing paranoia over the Fairness Doctrine has been going on for at least two years, especially in the religious fundamentalist community. People like James Dobson was using it to scare people into voting Republican even before the 2006 election, and it received a lot of air time during the Family Values Conference at the beginning of this Republican primary season.
And didn’t the Republicans attempt to pass some bizarre legislation a couple of years ago that banned Congress from ever making a new law to reintroduce something like the Fairness Doctrine? A law to ban future laws — it was bizarre, and I believe it didn’t pass, but they passed some token watered down provision instead, just to keep the religious wingnuts happy.
So while it’s beginning to get some play in the regular right wing talk radio circuit, this FD paranoia has been around for years as a scare tactic for right wing religious broadcasters.
November 20th, 2008 at 11:18 pm
A big part of the reason we don’t care is that the conservative-dominated radio and TV channels have lost most of their importance as media outlets. I think, in some sense, you’re seeing Limbaugh and the other right-wing radio types desperately attempt to assert his continued relevance: the liberals are scared of him, see? Their first order of business will surely be to shut him down!
Surely?
November 21st, 2008 at 6:27 am
“Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly believe they would be the first political prisoners interred in an Obama administration.”
I think you meant interned but the Freudian typo is OK.
November 21st, 2008 at 12:00 pm
I have a problem with our major news sources looking like the former Soviet Union’s propaganda machine and war news being controlled by the worlds major industrial complex manufacturer owning without challenge most of our major TV and Cable media. I think that is a conflict of interest and potentially threatens our national security.
November 21st, 2008 at 12:12 pm
Actually – I think it’s a sort of assumption error. If the Dems were as smart and focused on power as they should be, they would be bludgeoning through some kind of Fairness Doctrine. It’s a very logical move to consolidate power.
Just as, back in 2005 I was predicting that Bush would “Gulf of Tonkin” Iran and then invade. It was the logical way to keep the “Warrrrrr” momentum up and thus win the 2006 congress elections and keep the fire going for the next President. Again, the logical move if you want to consolidate your power.
The problem is, neither side is that focused on power, or that clear thinking. In both cases a mix of some thoughts for the good of the country and an inability to see how their support isn’t predicated on their own brilliance, but on structural factors leads to failing to work to stack the deck the way they could…
November 21st, 2008 at 12:15 pm
Mccain got 43%. There is a hard core portion of this country that listens to fox/oreilly/limbaugh and literally can not be reached. they have crawled into a hole and pulled in the dirt after them. If we are ever to function as a country we need to reach these people. we need to get them on board. We need the fairness doctrine.
Without it, the right is just going further and further crazy
November 21st, 2008 at 2:11 pm
It’s very strange. Political movements mischaracterize the other side’s general goals all the time. But I’ve never heard of anything like the current conservative mania for blocking a particular legislative provision that nobody is trying to enact.
I don’t know that it’s that unusual. I remember before the 2004 election a lot of people were afraid that Bush would reinstate the draft, which nobody on the right actually wanted to do.
November 28th, 2008 at 10:55 pm
Sen. Charles Schumer plans to hold a statewide Internet lottery to handle the deluge of New Yorkers wanting to attend President-elect Barack Obama’s historic inauguration. Schumer, who has received nearly 100,000 ticket
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