Disclaimer The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent my employer's view in anyway.
Yet another Democratic member of Congress is calling for the return of the Fairness Doctrine:
Congresswoman Anna Eshoo, D-Palo Alto, said Monday she will work to restore the Fairness Doctrine and have it apply to cable and satellite programming as well as radio and TV."I'll work on bringing it back. I still believe in it," Eshoo told the Daily Post in Palo Alto.The Fairness Doctrine required TV and radio stations to balance opposing points of view. It meant that those who disagreed with the political slant of a commentator were entitled to free air time to give contrasting points of view, usually in the same time slot as the original broadcast. The doctrine was repealed by the Reagan administration's Federal Communications Commission in 1987, and a year later, Rush Limbaugh's show went national, ushering in a new form of AM radio. ...Eshoo said she would recommend the doctrine be applied not only to radio and TV broadcasts, but also to cable and satellite services. "It should and will affect everyone," she said.
So now it's not just about bringing fairness to the supposed "public airwaves", but to the private ones as well. Jay Bullock as you might recall, blogged not all that long ago about how Republicans are in a panic over this for no good reason. When some bloggers, including myself, mentioned how Chuck Schumer talked about bringing it back, Jay said:
Nick, if Chuck Schumer introduces a fairness doctrine bill, I will renounce the party and move to Mexico. FOX News bullied him into his comments, and he has--how to put it delicately--zero pull with the Obama administration even if he wanted to change the law.
In all fairness to Jay, Chuck still hasn't introduced the bill, and there is no evidence that Congresswoman Eshoo has any more pull with the Obama administration than Schumer does, so I won't make him renounce his party (but he's free to do so anyway if he'd like). But let's not pretend that there aren't plenty of people in Washington who would like to see this happen in one form or another, or wouldn't like to use the threat of the fairness doctrine to bully broadcast media into other concessions.