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How the Fairness Doctrine Worked · Stuff You Should Know

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey, everybody comes see us, because we're coming to see you. Specifically,
0:03
Speaker 1: if you live in Chicago. On July, we're gonna be
0:07
Speaker 1: at the Harris Theater, and the following night we're going
0:09
Speaker 1: to be at the Dan Fourth Music Hall in Toronto.
0:12
Speaker 1: And that's just the beginning, that's right. We're also going
0:14
Speaker 1: to our beloved Wilburt Theater, which we own in Boston
0:18
Speaker 1: on October twenty nine, and then our first visit to Portland,
0:21
Speaker 1: Maine at the State Theater in August. Yep. That's going
0:24
Speaker 1: to be followed in October. We're gonna take a little
0:26
Speaker 1: break because that's a lot of touring in October. On
0:29
Speaker 1: the ninth we're going to be at the Plaza Live
0:31
Speaker 1: in Orlando, and then on October ten, we're gonna be
0:34
Speaker 1: at the Civic Theater in New Orleans, that's right. And
0:37
Speaker 1: in October we're gonna round it all out at the
0:40
Speaker 1: Bellhouse in Brooklyn for three shows October yep. So go
0:46
Speaker 1: to s Y s K live dot com for tickets
0:49
Speaker 1: and information and we will see you starting this July
0:52
Speaker 1: in Chicago. Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production
0:57
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, welcome to
1:05
Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chook Bryant,
1:10
Speaker 1: and there's Jared Dog the road Land of All Time
1:15
Speaker 1: over there, and this is stuff you should know. I
1:19
Speaker 1: gotta pep it up a little bit, you know? Is
1:21
Speaker 1: that what that was? You gotta screw it up a
1:26
Speaker 1: little bit, That's what I meant to say, speaking of
1:28
Speaker 1: screwing up Chicago, Illinois, screwing up it is I was.
1:36
Speaker 1: I was trying to think about this, like which approach
1:38
Speaker 1: should we take. Should we should we just outright lie
1:41
Speaker 1: and say, like, there's very few tickets left, so you
1:43
Speaker 1: better go get them now now? Or should we shame
1:45
Speaker 1: them and say there are plenty of tickets left, a
1:48
Speaker 1: disappointing amount of tickets left. I think we should just
1:51
Speaker 1: be honest and not shame them, but express our disappointment.
1:55
Speaker 1: Nothing works better then disappointment. You know, Chicago, we really
2:02
Speaker 1: expected a little more from you than this. So if
2:08
Speaker 1: you're confused about what we're talking about, probably because you
2:11
Speaker 1: haven't heard, and that's our fault. About our live shows
2:15
Speaker 1: coming up all around the country. Two cities we've never
2:20
Speaker 1: been to before. Yeah, yeah, we've never been to Orlando before.
2:23
Speaker 1: We've never been to Portland, Maine before, that's right. But
2:27
Speaker 1: we are going to Chicago again because we thought Chicago
2:29
Speaker 1: loved us in July at the Harris Theater and then
2:33
Speaker 1: Toronto the next night on July. They're buying a lot
2:35
Speaker 1: of tickets. They love us up there. Yeah, at the
2:37
Speaker 1: Day and fourth. Uh. And then Boston August twenty nine,
2:41
Speaker 1: Portland May and August, Orlando and New Orleans October nine
2:44
Speaker 1: and ten, and then Brooklyn October three night run at
2:50
Speaker 1: the Bellhouse in Brooklyn, which is gonna be great. But again, Toronto,
2:55
Speaker 1: you're doing great, guys. Keep it up. Chicago, you could
3:00
Speaker 1: and to step it up a little bit. You've got
3:01
Speaker 1: a little bit of time. But why wait you know, yeah,
3:04
Speaker 1: I mean the seats are only going to get worse.
3:06
Speaker 1: True dat, Chuck, true dat. So just go to s
3:09
Speaker 1: y s K Live for our home or touring home
3:14
Speaker 1: on the web thanks to our buddies at squarespace. Oh yeah,
3:18
Speaker 1: and uh now let's talk about the fairness doctrine. Okay,
3:22
Speaker 1: we actually need to um. If this were say, pre seven,
3:28
Speaker 1: we would need to have Jerry come in and say, so,
3:32
Speaker 1: here's all the reasons why you shouldn't buy tickets to
3:35
Speaker 1: stuff you should know live if we were going to
3:37
Speaker 1: follow the fairness doctrine. But it's not. And as a
3:41
Speaker 1: matter of fact, I wonder how podcasting would how this
3:44
Speaker 1: would apply or have applied to podcasting if it had
3:48
Speaker 1: still been around, or if podcasting would have been one
3:50
Speaker 1: of those things that kind of grew up around the
3:53
Speaker 1: fairness doctrine. Who knows, but it's a fascinating Um what
3:57
Speaker 1: are those called? When uh, when an impossible Sure there's
4:02
Speaker 1: another word for it, when it's something that just can't
4:04
Speaker 1: possibly happen, kind of like speculative fiction or something like that.
4:09
Speaker 1: I can't remember. But you know, since podcast don't fall
4:12
Speaker 1: under the FCC, then doubt if it would have mattered.
4:15
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I guess that's that's true. Huh, Yeah, we
4:18
Speaker 1: could if we wanted to. Right now, we could say
4:20
Speaker 1: every curse word, every awful thing in the world under
4:24
Speaker 1: the sun. We elect not to do that everyone. I
4:28
Speaker 1: heard a radio DJ the other day say, um, I
4:32
Speaker 1: know you want to curse so bad right now, this
4:34
Speaker 1: is why we're getting a podcast, And I was like, yeah,
4:39
Speaker 1: I guess we could. I guess we could curse, but
4:42
Speaker 1: it's I like that we don't chuck. I do too.
4:44
Speaker 1: And if you want to hear me curse just a
4:46
Speaker 1: you can come to a live show true because it
4:49
Speaker 1: happens a little bit, or be you can just join
4:52
Speaker 1: me over at movie crush. I cuss had a lot
4:54
Speaker 1: over there. Yeah. I think at first people were like, oh,
4:58
Speaker 1: and then now I think people go listen in part
5:02
Speaker 1: to hear you curse. They like to hear that blue
5:04
Speaker 1: streak coming out of the real me. Oh, I'd like
5:08
Speaker 1: to think that both sides are the real You put
5:10
Speaker 1: together well for roughly two and a half hours a week,
5:15
Speaker 1: this is the real me. Do you find it difficult
5:18
Speaker 1: not to curse on on the show? Uh? No, I
5:21
Speaker 1: mean I'm fully used to it by now, but I
5:24
Speaker 1: definitely am not as fully freewheeling as I normally am. Yeah,
5:29
Speaker 1: I guess I should say I want to give the
5:30
Speaker 1: impression that I'm like some you know, Flanders type or whatever,
5:34
Speaker 1: curse pretty routinely myself in regular life. But I guess
5:38
Speaker 1: I find a kind of comforting just knowing that there's
5:41
Speaker 1: a there's a safe space where I don't say, the
5:45
Speaker 1: afford a lot. You should start another podcast just called
5:48
Speaker 1: filth Floren Filth with Josh Clark. Okay, that's a pretty
5:55
Speaker 1: good idea. But none of this has to do with
5:58
Speaker 1: the nineteen twenties except for the fact that people did
6:01
Speaker 1: not curse on the radio back then either because there
6:03
Speaker 1: weren't a lot of people on the radio in the
6:05
Speaker 1: nineteen twenties. No, actually, pre or early early early nineteen twenties,
6:10
Speaker 1: that is, right pre November nine, there was not much
6:15
Speaker 1: going on on the radio aside from Morse Code, some
6:18
Speaker 1: Ham Radio operators, and remember we did a pretty good
6:21
Speaker 1: episode on Ham Radio, remember correctly. Yeah, Well, one of
6:25
Speaker 1: the things I remember about that Ham Radio episode is
6:28
Speaker 1: that there was a kind of a whole hacker antarchic
6:32
Speaker 1: ethos um surrounding the early days of radio. You know,
6:36
Speaker 1: it's just a total free for all. You can broadcast
6:38
Speaker 1: on whatever station you wanted to and get in arguments with,
6:42
Speaker 1: you know, the government if you wanted to, who who
6:45
Speaker 1: cared there was. There was not a lot of ways
6:47
Speaker 1: to trace anybody. So there was a lot of anything
6:50
Speaker 1: goes mentality among the early Ham radio operators. But but
6:55
Speaker 1: that was basically all you would hear is people saying like, um, like, hey,
6:59
Speaker 1: how's it kind of thing. You know, maybe some heavy breathing.
7:03
Speaker 1: And then in November, station called k d k A
7:08
Speaker 1: actually organized itself and the first broadcast UM that it
7:13
Speaker 1: put out was reading the election results from the James
7:16
Speaker 1: Cock James Cox, Oh my gosh, I almost just violated
7:22
Speaker 1: FCC rules dirty talk James Cox, Uh, Warren Harding presidential election.
7:30
Speaker 1: It was the first commercial UM licensed radio broadcast in
7:36
Speaker 1: the world. I think, yeah, I think that's a great
7:39
Speaker 1: trivia question if someone were to say, what was what
7:43
Speaker 1: city you know hosted or whatever was part of the
7:45
Speaker 1: first radio commercial radio broadcast Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, uh, And the
7:51
Speaker 1: follow up would be, and what did they broadcast federal
7:55
Speaker 1: a presidential election outcome? Which was a big deal because
8:00
Speaker 1: it's weird to think about in ninety that people all
8:03
Speaker 1: over the country we're waiting for that morning paper to
8:06
Speaker 1: come out. Except in Pittsburgh. They knew, right, they did know,
8:11
Speaker 1: And not everybody in Pittsburgh, just the people who had
8:13
Speaker 1: basically built their own radios because that was the radios
8:16
Speaker 1: that were around. They were pretty much pretty much. But
8:21
Speaker 1: the fact that this happened in words spread pretty quickly. Yeah,
8:25
Speaker 1: some people in Pittsburgh knew the election results because they
8:27
Speaker 1: were listening to the radio, and they ran around yelling
8:30
Speaker 1: that out and said we heard it on a radio,
8:33
Speaker 1: and everyone's like these people, lock them up. Yeah. And
8:37
Speaker 1: also other little known fact, the first song played on
8:40
Speaker 1: the radio was Radio Killed the newspaper Star. Did you
8:45
Speaker 1: just make that up? Or did you have that prep?
8:47
Speaker 1: I just made it up? Okay, good job, thank you,
8:49
Speaker 1: man Um, I'm glad I got like that. Grudging good
8:53
Speaker 1: job because there was almost contempt in that first initial well,
8:56
Speaker 1: because off the cuff, that's a great joke. But if
8:59
Speaker 1: he works up that for a few hours, then I
9:01
Speaker 1: nont no. When's the last time I workeshop the joke?
9:04
Speaker 1: I don't know. Okay, you don't let you keep it
9:08
Speaker 1: a close to the guarded secret. So okay. So here's
9:10
Speaker 1: the point. This is the reason we're even talking about
9:12
Speaker 1: that first broadcast is because that was November ninety. By
9:16
Speaker 1: nine four, I think they're in in in like twenty
9:21
Speaker 1: thousand radios n four. There are one and a half
9:25
Speaker 1: million radios in the United States. By nineteen thirty eight
9:32
Speaker 1: of every household in America had a radio, and so
9:37
Speaker 1: there was this massive transition from distributing news and making
9:42
Speaker 1: sure everybody was up to date on all the information
9:44
Speaker 1: they needed to be like a smart voter or hold
9:47
Speaker 1: like political or social or cultural opinions. Um. That transition
9:52
Speaker 1: moved from newspapers from print, which still hung around, but
9:58
Speaker 1: over to radio. Radio became team much um, much more
10:02
Speaker 1: prevalent as far as the spread of information to an
10:05
Speaker 1: increasingly large number of people went in the United States
10:10
Speaker 1: in a very short time, in like twenty years. Yeah. So, um,
10:14
Speaker 1: in the nineteen forties, the FCC and you know, there's
10:19
Speaker 1: some background to all this that will get to but
10:21
Speaker 1: we haven't even really said what the fairness doctrine is yet. Uh.
10:25
Speaker 1: Finally in ninete um that the US government said, you
10:29
Speaker 1: know what, we need some help here. We're a little
10:31
Speaker 1: bit worried that um geez, somebody could some private citizen
10:37
Speaker 1: who's wealthy could go and buy all the radio stations
10:40
Speaker 1: and essentially propagandize the news and there's nothing we can
10:44
Speaker 1: do about it. Yeah. So basically what they said was this,
10:48
Speaker 1: there is one thing we can do about it. We
10:50
Speaker 1: can flex our muscle as the government and specifically say
10:55
Speaker 1: you broadcasters can't do that, that's right. Via something called
11:01
Speaker 1: the Fairness Doctrine, which had the overall goal of basically,
11:06
Speaker 1: and it's it's very kind of cute to look back
11:09
Speaker 1: at this time period, but its initial goal was to
11:11
Speaker 1: make sure that all the information on the on the
11:14
Speaker 1: radio waves was good information and true and fair and enriching.
11:19
Speaker 1: And there there's only so much space on a radio dial.
11:23
Speaker 1: So and this is this is very critical that there
11:26
Speaker 1: were a limited number of frequencies available. Yes, frequency scarcity.
11:31
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, that's just put a pin in that,
11:33
Speaker 1: because that's a very big deal. Is how this waighed
11:36
Speaker 1: in the favor of the fairness doctrine and then also
11:38
Speaker 1: kind of helped kill it in some ways. But basically,
11:41
Speaker 1: the very progressive you that public interest outweigh private interest
11:46
Speaker 1: in the public has a right to really good information
11:51
Speaker 1: over the free speech of the broadcaster. Even yes, so
11:54
Speaker 1: you just you just hit it right on the head
11:58
Speaker 1: like that is the crux of the fairness doc drin
12:00
Speaker 1: And it seems like okay, depending on your viewpoint, either
12:04
Speaker 1: either like the most um vile idea ever or just
12:09
Speaker 1: a completely sensible idea. And the reason that it can
12:13
Speaker 1: present the same these two totally different um opinions is
12:18
Speaker 1: because this idea, the fairness doctrine, is it sits right
12:22
Speaker 1: at the heart of the difference between the right and
12:26
Speaker 1: the left, between conservativism and libertarianism and and liberalism right,
12:32
Speaker 1: and it is it comes down to this, like if
12:35
Speaker 1: you if you have to promote um public intercourse, like
12:41
Speaker 1: people understanding not doing it in public, but I mean discourse,
12:47
Speaker 1: the public intercourse. So yeah, I guess doing it in
12:50
Speaker 1: public if you're going to promote public discourse and protected
12:54
Speaker 1: as a government saying like the the like, it's the
12:57
Speaker 1: role of government to say, we need to make sure
13:00
Speaker 1: that the quality of the information that's getting out there
13:03
Speaker 1: is protected, and and that we have to do that.
13:07
Speaker 1: We have to limit what broadcasters can say. We have
13:12
Speaker 1: to curtail free speech. Two people on the right like,
13:15
Speaker 1: right there, full stop. That's a problem. That's an issue.
13:18
Speaker 1: It's it has fatally flawed because you are curtailing the
13:21
Speaker 1: free speech of somebody, whether it's a whether it's NBC
13:26
Speaker 1: or Joe Schmo who wants to say something on the radio.
13:29
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter. You're curtailing free speech, and therefore that
13:33
Speaker 1: is wrong. People on the left say, well, whoa, whoa,
13:36
Speaker 1: this is the this is this is a privilege to
13:39
Speaker 1: broadcast on the radio. And in order to protect the
13:44
Speaker 1: larger public and its interests, we have to curtail that
13:48
Speaker 1: free speech of the very narrowed money, moneyed interests that
13:53
Speaker 1: can afford a license to broadcasts. And and there's no
13:57
Speaker 1: way to reconcile the two. You can't. It's you have
14:00
Speaker 1: to choose a side. You have to form an opinion
14:03
Speaker 1: one way or the other. And whatever you choose is
14:06
Speaker 1: your larger view of whether you're a liberal or whether
14:10
Speaker 1: you're conservative. Yeah, pretty much. Um, I mean it fell
14:14
Speaker 1: along those lines back then and stilled us today. Even
14:17
Speaker 1: though the fairness doctrine isn't around, the ideology is, well,
14:21
Speaker 1: it keeps getting brought out and kind of you know, um,
14:25
Speaker 1: forced along a like an angry parade route and in
14:28
Speaker 1: order to kind of say like, look, look, look what
14:30
Speaker 1: the government is capable of doing. Look at the overreach
14:33
Speaker 1: they really want to do. Don't let them do it
14:35
Speaker 1: again with X. You know. So it is. It's a
14:38
Speaker 1: huge flashpoint. And it's understandable why it seems like so
14:43
Speaker 1: um kind of limp and bureaucratic and boring. But when
14:46
Speaker 1: you dig into the history of the whole thing and
14:49
Speaker 1: even the contemporary idea behind it, it's a huge flashpoint
14:53
Speaker 1: politically in the United States. Yeah. So it had a
14:56
Speaker 1: couple of main components, and then within that a cup
15:00
Speaker 1: of big, big rules, very important rules. The first the
15:03
Speaker 1: components were UM They were known together as the fairness rule,
15:08
Speaker 1: which is, private broadcasters must report on my matters of
15:12
Speaker 1: public interest, like it's a responsibility of you as a broadcaster,
15:15
Speaker 1: that's right. Uh. And private broadcasters must cover opposing perspectives
15:21
Speaker 1: regarding that public interest. It's a that's a big one.
15:25
Speaker 1: And then the little rules there, the personal attack rules
15:28
Speaker 1: said that if you're a broadcaster and you are going
15:30
Speaker 1: to run a negative story UM on somebody or something
15:35
Speaker 1: prior to that, you have to let these people know
15:37
Speaker 1: or this organization know and give them time to respond
15:41
Speaker 1: on the air. And then the political editorial rule, which
15:44
Speaker 1: is private broadcasters that air editorial programming that endorses a
15:49
Speaker 1: political candidate must inform other candidates and offer them time
15:53
Speaker 1: to respond on air. Uh. Not to be confused with
15:56
Speaker 1: the equal time rule, that's that's different. Yeah. The equal
15:59
Speaker 1: time rule is is why debates UM have are supposed
16:03
Speaker 1: to have all candidates, because you're supposed to if you
16:07
Speaker 1: give one candidate time air time to say, hey, here's
16:10
Speaker 1: my platform. You're supposed to give all other candidates the
16:14
Speaker 1: equal amount of time, and that that political editorial rule
16:17
Speaker 1: kind of it's close to it, and it follows in
16:20
Speaker 1: the same tradition and principle. But really the personal attack
16:23
Speaker 1: role and the political editorial rule that we're part of
16:26
Speaker 1: the fairness doctrine, that's just like the foundation of of
16:29
Speaker 1: good journalism. Basically, it was not they're not radical ideas.
16:33
Speaker 1: That's good point. So the idea though that that public
16:37
Speaker 1: that are that private broadcasters have to talk about issues
16:41
Speaker 1: and then have to air opposing viewpoints, that is that
16:44
Speaker 1: is kind of controversial because it's saying like he we
16:48
Speaker 1: we the government are saying you have to do this,
16:50
Speaker 1: this is your responsibility. And the idea that the government
16:53
Speaker 1: even has control over air waves is is in dispute,
16:57
Speaker 1: but it actually dates pretty are back and we'll talk
17:02
Speaker 1: about the background, the backstory behind the fairness doctrine after
17:06
Speaker 1: a message. How about that? It sounds good, okay, Chuck.
17:31
Speaker 1: So there there's one thing to really understand what we're
17:34
Speaker 1: talking about here. Initially we're talking about radio waves and
17:37
Speaker 1: then eventually TV waves, and then that eventually turned into
17:40
Speaker 1: the Internet. But all these things, especially something like air
17:44
Speaker 1: air waves for a radio and TV, these exist naturally, right,
17:49
Speaker 1: There's not like a government factory that produces radio waves
17:54
Speaker 1: and then the government can say, well, we we produce these,
17:56
Speaker 1: so we can divu that's a it's it's an artificial
18:01
Speaker 1: idea that the government can say we regulate these air
18:05
Speaker 1: waves because it's citizens listening to the stuff that's broadcast
18:09
Speaker 1: on the airwaves, and it's private companies broadcasting on the
18:12
Speaker 1: airwaves using equipment that's manufactured by other private companies. So
18:15
Speaker 1: the government is insinuating itself and saying, well, well, this
18:19
Speaker 1: is too important to leave to the market. We have
18:23
Speaker 1: to regulate this in some ways, and we're going to
18:25
Speaker 1: do that. And the whole thing actually started, um with
18:28
Speaker 1: the Titanic, to tell you the truth, the Titanic ship,
18:32
Speaker 1: the Titanic ship, the very one ship that's right. Uh.
18:37
Speaker 1: Leading up to the Titanic, you know, radio is being used,
18:40
Speaker 1: um and quite a bit a maritime communication. Uh. In fact,
18:44
Speaker 1: we even passed the Ship Act of nineteen ten, which
18:47
Speaker 1: required ships leaving the United States to have radio equipment
18:51
Speaker 1: to know how to use it, uh, and sort of
18:53
Speaker 1: laid out some basic broadcasting standards. But what they didn't
18:57
Speaker 1: do was say, all right, we're gonna signed radio frequencies um,
19:02
Speaker 1: and we're gonna like reserve a channel for emergencies only. Uh.
19:06
Speaker 1: This kind of stung them because a couple of years
19:08
Speaker 1: after that, a little boat called the RMS Titanic ship
19:13
Speaker 1: the Titanic, it wasn't a little boat, it was a
19:17
Speaker 1: ocean liner. Sure, I used to know the difference between
19:21
Speaker 1: ocean liner and a cruise ship. I think ocean liners
19:27
Speaker 1: are trans atlantic. Is that is that the deal? I've
19:29
Speaker 1: never heard the difference. I think that's it the same
19:32
Speaker 1: or something. And I think an ocean liner specifically can
19:35
Speaker 1: cross the two different continents. I got Yeah, I guess
19:39
Speaker 1: the cruise ship could just hug the coast or something
19:41
Speaker 1: like that. But I might be making all that up. So, Uh,
19:46
Speaker 1: the Titanic sank. There was a lot of radio traffic
19:49
Speaker 1: going on as the disaster breaks out, obviously, so even
19:53
Speaker 1: though this uh in Newfoundland they heard very early on
19:58
Speaker 1: and picked up this distress call, they couldn't really get
20:00
Speaker 1: it out because everything was all clogged up. Yeah, there
20:03
Speaker 1: are a lot of ham radio operators screwing things up
20:06
Speaker 1: at the time. That's right, and that's what prompted the
20:09
Speaker 1: Radio Act of nineteen twelve UM, which was sort of
20:12
Speaker 1: the beginnings of the foundation of what would eventually become
20:14
Speaker 1: the Fairness doctrine, because what it did was it established
20:18
Speaker 1: spectrum allocation and the FCC basically said, hey, listen, uh,
20:23
Speaker 1: if you want to broadcast, you can't just broadcast. You
20:25
Speaker 1: gotta come to us and get a license. Yeah. Initially
20:29
Speaker 1: it was the Commerce Department that was that was um
20:31
Speaker 1: issuing licenses, and then came the Radio Act of that
20:37
Speaker 1: formed the Radio Commission, and they started handling licenses. But
20:41
Speaker 1: not only did they start saying, Okay, you're a broadcaster,
20:45
Speaker 1: here's your license, this is the frequency that you can
20:48
Speaker 1: um broadcast on. Prior to that that was around in
20:51
Speaker 1: the Radio Act, that was the Commerce Department that did that,
20:54
Speaker 1: but there was no way to police it. And so
20:56
Speaker 1: if you were say NBC Radio and the there were
21:00
Speaker 1: a bunch of people broadcasting on your frequency at seven pm,
21:04
Speaker 1: you just switched to Yeah, well no, you just switched
21:07
Speaker 1: to a different frequency and start broadcasting, and so there's
21:10
Speaker 1: no way to police it. Well, with the Radio Act
21:12
Speaker 1: of and the creation is Radio Commission, there was a
21:16
Speaker 1: way to police it, because you could have your license
21:18
Speaker 1: revoked and if you kept broadcasting, guys would come to
21:22
Speaker 1: your house and kidnap your family. Yeah. But the really
21:26
Speaker 1: important thing, and this is how it uh not your family.
21:30
Speaker 1: The really important thing was that established what we talked
21:33
Speaker 1: about before, which is spectrum scarcity. There's only so much
21:36
Speaker 1: space now if everyone has to apply for a license,
21:39
Speaker 1: who wants to broadcast? UM, It's just it's it was
21:44
Speaker 1: very key in in the setup and then, like I said,
21:47
Speaker 1: eventual downfall of the fairness doctrine. Yeah, because it says
21:50
Speaker 1: this like, Okay, here's the full here's the full spectrum
21:53
Speaker 1: the radio spectrum that we can broadcast on UM, and
21:57
Speaker 1: we're going to carve it up and each person gets
22:00
Speaker 1: a specific frequency to broadcast on. That's that means that
22:03
Speaker 1: there's a finite number of frequencies. So there's a finite
22:06
Speaker 1: number of licenses, which means that not everybody can have
22:11
Speaker 1: a a license to broadcast. Which means that that the
22:16
Speaker 1: people who do have that license to broadcast have a
22:19
Speaker 1: very important privilege afforded to them. And because it's a
22:23
Speaker 1: privilege because the government has insinuated itself and said we're
22:26
Speaker 1: doling out these privileges. We've decided we the government have
22:30
Speaker 1: decided that that you have a responsibility to present fair
22:36
Speaker 1: and balanced reporting to the government to the public, including
22:41
Speaker 1: basically all sides of an issue, like you have a
22:44
Speaker 1: responsibility that supersedes your right to free speech as a broadcaster.
22:49
Speaker 1: That was That's what Spectrum scarcity created, right. Uh, this
22:55
Speaker 1: radio act Um. While it did establish that, it kind
22:59
Speaker 1: of made some errors basically and how they set it up.
23:03
Speaker 1: There are a lot of misspellings. Yeah, there are a
23:05
Speaker 1: lot of misspellings. But they would say basically to the broadcasters,
23:09
Speaker 1: you have to air content in support of quote, public convenience,
23:13
Speaker 1: interest or necessity end quote. But they didn't really define
23:16
Speaker 1: what that was, which, by by the way I looked
23:18
Speaker 1: at up, I was like, what does public convenience mean?
23:21
Speaker 1: Apparently the UK it means a public toilet and that's
23:24
Speaker 1: the only definition I could ever find for it. So
23:27
Speaker 1: somebody just made that up. The air content about public
23:32
Speaker 1: toilets actually like that apart from naked gun it's just
23:36
Speaker 1: nothing but the sounds of people peeing. Um. But this
23:40
Speaker 1: is a big problem because if something isn't clearly defined,
23:42
Speaker 1: then it can't be Uh, it can't be enforced, right,
23:47
Speaker 1: you know. So in they knew that this was a problem.
23:51
Speaker 1: This was how many years later, like seven years later,
23:55
Speaker 1: and they said, you know what, we need to issue
23:57
Speaker 1: another act because we're the federal government. And so the
24:00
Speaker 1: Federal Communications Act replaced the Radio Act, the FEC was born,
24:05
Speaker 1: replaced the Radio Commission, and the f SEC said, all right,
24:09
Speaker 1: the first thing we gotta do is define what this
24:11
Speaker 1: public interest thing is all about, right, because not only
24:14
Speaker 1: does it make it difficult to enforce, it makes it
24:17
Speaker 1: difficult to follow. So like, even if you're a broadcasting
24:20
Speaker 1: you're like, I totally agree with this. I do have
24:22
Speaker 1: a right and responsibility. Uh, what's this public public convenience thing? Again?
24:26
Speaker 1: Like how do I do this? What am I supposed
24:28
Speaker 1: to be doing? And if it's not defined, yeah, you
24:31
Speaker 1: can't enforce it. You also can't follow it if you
24:33
Speaker 1: want to follow it. So there was just too much
24:36
Speaker 1: gray area. And so the FCC um when this was created,
24:40
Speaker 1: this idea of um, okay, we're gonna set about create
24:43
Speaker 1: like defining this stuff and really generating this idea of
24:46
Speaker 1: what it means to be a responsible broadcaster. It happened
24:49
Speaker 1: at a really liberal time in America's history, right after
24:53
Speaker 1: the New Deal had really kind of come along and
24:56
Speaker 1: changed the complexion of America pretty dramatically, and liberalism and
25:01
Speaker 1: progressivism had really set in and was entrenched in the
25:06
Speaker 1: fabric of American politics. And so there was this idea
25:10
Speaker 1: that the best way to prevent broadcasters from from asserting
25:17
Speaker 1: and overbearing influence on public discourse because they had the
25:21
Speaker 1: loudest voice, because they had the radio licenses right, was
25:25
Speaker 1: to just say, you guys can't editorialize at all. And
25:30
Speaker 1: this became known as the Mayflower Decision or the Mayflower doctrine.
25:34
Speaker 1: It was a nineteen forty one FCC ruling that basically said,
25:38
Speaker 1: you know what, um, you guys, you guys have to
25:42
Speaker 1: basically be neutral in that you can't you can't say anything,
25:46
Speaker 1: you can't present any particular side. If we find out
25:50
Speaker 1: that you guys are promoting, say the policy agenda or
25:55
Speaker 1: the favorite politics of like your station owner or your
25:57
Speaker 1: parent company or something like that, you're trouble. And that
26:01
Speaker 1: was kind of like the the the line that they
26:04
Speaker 1: drew no editorializing whatsoever, that's right, and that um, that
26:07
Speaker 1: really sort of laid the groundwork in a big, big
26:09
Speaker 1: way for the fairness doctrine, even though the fairness doctrine
26:12
Speaker 1: sort of undid that and said, well, you know, editor
26:16
Speaker 1: you can editorialize, but you just have to do it
26:18
Speaker 1: on both sides, right, you have to present present, prevent
26:21
Speaker 1: present both sides. And like, on the one hand, that
26:25
Speaker 1: was a gift to the to the broadcasters right there
26:27
Speaker 1: saying okay, you can you can use your own voice,
26:30
Speaker 1: you can state your own opinion, you can support your
26:32
Speaker 1: own political candidate, but you have to give air time
26:36
Speaker 1: to the other political candidate. You have to give air
26:40
Speaker 1: time to people with an opposing view of what you
26:43
Speaker 1: just said. So it was it was kind of like
26:46
Speaker 1: a compromise, but it was also a weakening of the
26:49
Speaker 1: progressivist agenda, I guess yeah. And the broadcasters did not
26:53
Speaker 1: like it for sure, because again they were still sort
26:57
Speaker 1: of confused about what what is public and poor didn't
27:00
Speaker 1: mean we're not even sure you know, everything is decided
27:03
Speaker 1: and applied on a case by case basis in other words, yeah,
27:08
Speaker 1: in other words, if somebody, uh just files a complaint,
27:11
Speaker 1: basically they will take up that complaint and hear that complaint.
27:15
Speaker 1: But it wasn't like some like big sweeping thing. No,
27:18
Speaker 1: but it was also Chuck, that's so that that means
27:20
Speaker 1: that it's um, it's a capricious an arbitrary basically applying
27:25
Speaker 1: the rule on a case by case basis rather than
27:28
Speaker 1: a sweeping regulation. But it's also a weakness because it
27:32
Speaker 1: means that the SEC is saying, we'll leave it to you,
27:35
Speaker 1: the broadcasters, to police yourselves. We're only gonna act when
27:38
Speaker 1: somebody complains. Yeah, So what happened in a lot of
27:41
Speaker 1: cases was some radio stations were like, you know what,
27:44
Speaker 1: I'm not even gonna go there, and I'm gonna avoid
27:46
Speaker 1: controversy um at all, you know altogether, because I don't
27:50
Speaker 1: think we pointed out, uh, it wasn't just about politics.
27:54
Speaker 1: It was basically covered controversial issues in general, like and
27:58
Speaker 1: that this will play a big part, like everything from
28:02
Speaker 1: climate denial to the anti vax movement in the nineteen eighties,
28:05
Speaker 1: Like they all had to have equal time under the
28:08
Speaker 1: fairness doctrine. And a lot of people point to the
28:11
Speaker 1: fairness doctrine as like how these movements got jumped started
28:15
Speaker 1: to begin with because they didn't put those opinions in context.
28:19
Speaker 1: They were just like, you know, they didn't say this
28:22
Speaker 1: is very scientifically valid and now here's the opposing viewpoint
28:26
Speaker 1: which has no science to back it up, right exactly,
28:29
Speaker 1: And and that was the fact that they didn't do that.
28:32
Speaker 1: They were airing on the side of caution UM over editorializing,
28:37
Speaker 1: but also probably they were trying to make sure that
28:40
Speaker 1: everybody was was not offended. They didn't offend either side
28:44
Speaker 1: because they didn't want to be boycotted with advertising to
28:47
Speaker 1: or find sure. Yeah, so that was a big problem
28:51
Speaker 1: with the fairness doctrine is that it was ill defined.
28:54
Speaker 1: It was opened the door for opposing viewpoints that that
29:00
Speaker 1: that put them on equal footing or equal ground with
29:03
Speaker 1: with UM with other viewpoints that were saying scientifically backed,
29:08
Speaker 1: which created what's called the false balance problem. UM. And
29:11
Speaker 1: then uh, there was opposition to it to basically the
29:16
Speaker 1: to the fairness doctrine from from the outset, not just
29:19
Speaker 1: the broadcasters who thought they didn't want any kind of
29:22
Speaker 1: restriction on their speech, but also interestingly UM it represented
29:27
Speaker 1: an loophole to combat advertising too, which I think the
29:31
Speaker 1: FEC hadn't thought of, but they said, yeah, this actually
29:34
Speaker 1: applies when it when it came up, there was UM
29:37
Speaker 1: a ruling in nineteen sixty seven that found that cigarette
29:41
Speaker 1: advertising um qualified as a um uh a presentation of
29:48
Speaker 1: one viewpoint of a controversial subject. Basically, cigarette smoking is great,
29:54
Speaker 1: Go go smoke some cigarettes. And so some consumer groups
29:59
Speaker 1: uh petition the FCC and say, hey, we should be
30:03
Speaker 1: able to give the opposing viewpoint, don't smoke cigarettes, it's
30:06
Speaker 1: bad for you, and that SEC said you're absolutely right,
30:09
Speaker 1: and advertiser was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, this
30:11
Speaker 1: is a big deal. And now they jumped in to
30:14
Speaker 1: back up the National Association of Broadcasters, which was opposed
30:18
Speaker 1: to the fairness doctrine in general. Yeah, and it also
30:20
Speaker 1: you know that kind of thing, if advertising counts, set
30:23
Speaker 1: opens the doors, and it did for you know, like uh,
30:27
Speaker 1: and we'll we'll get to this more specifically later. But
30:30
Speaker 1: like if a power company wanted to do an ad
30:32
Speaker 1: about their great new nuclear power plant that they were
30:34
Speaker 1: going to build, like a liberal group can come forward
30:37
Speaker 1: and say no, no, no, like that's not an ad. Um.
30:41
Speaker 1: I know, they're paying for airspace, but that means we
30:44
Speaker 1: need to talk about the ills of nuclear power, right right.
30:47
Speaker 1: And I mean even if it wasn't at the opposing
30:50
Speaker 1: group could say we get free air time to say
30:53
Speaker 1: that this is the opposite of that. And so if
30:55
Speaker 1: you're a broadcaster, especially if you're in a like a
30:57
Speaker 1: successful market that you know fifteen thirty sixties second spot
31:03
Speaker 1: is important, you don't want to give that away. But
31:06
Speaker 1: it may also you may have like an interest in
31:09
Speaker 1: whatever the other group is protesting. So just on that
31:13
Speaker 1: in that respect as well, you don't really want to
31:14
Speaker 1: air the opposing view. The problem with the fairness Doctor,
31:17
Speaker 1: and if you're libertarian or conservative is that it said
31:21
Speaker 1: you have to do that. You have to air this
31:23
Speaker 1: opposing view. The SEC says, so that's right. So you
31:28
Speaker 1: gotta think this is gonna end up in court at
31:30
Speaker 1: some point, and it did quite quite a few times
31:33
Speaker 1: over the years, not surprisingly uh and for about a
31:37
Speaker 1: twenty to thirty year period US courts basically supported the
31:41
Speaker 1: fcc UH in fulfilling this mandate. Um there were some
31:45
Speaker 1: some real highlights in nineteen sixty nine. There are a
31:48
Speaker 1: couple of big court rulings that affirmed this enforcement. One
31:53
Speaker 1: was Red Lion Broadcasting Company Incorporated the f c C.
31:58
Speaker 1: It's a little mouthie So this one was sort of
32:01
Speaker 1: two cases in one UM. The Supreme Court was able
32:04
Speaker 1: to guild two birds. One case was an FCC appeal
32:08
Speaker 1: of a lower court ruling UH that said this, you know,
32:11
Speaker 1: the personal attack and political editorial rules as two big
32:13
Speaker 1: rules were unconstitutional. Uh. And the second was a broadcaster
32:17
Speaker 1: appealing of a lower court ruling that said the fccs
32:20
Speaker 1: application of those rules was constitutional. So I said, all right,
32:25
Speaker 1: you guys, let's just combine this into one thing and
32:29
Speaker 1: we'll hear the case. Uh. And in the latter one,
32:32
Speaker 1: there was an investigative journalist named Fred J. Cook, and
32:35
Speaker 1: he filed a complaint. And like we said, it was
32:37
Speaker 1: case by case stuff. So these this complaint made it
32:40
Speaker 1: all the way to the Supreme Court. Fred Cook filed
32:43
Speaker 1: a complaint against Redline Broadcasting, who owned uh W c
32:48
Speaker 1: g B, because they had a broadcast with Reverend Billy
32:51
Speaker 1: James Hargus that claimed that Cook, who was an author
32:55
Speaker 1: and wrote a very uh kind of salacious expose about
32:59
Speaker 1: the FBI. I uh. And this this reverend said, you
33:02
Speaker 1: know what, this author is worked for the communist and
33:05
Speaker 1: he attacked JEdgar Hoover. And we it turns out they
33:08
Speaker 1: didn't contact Cook to give him that equal chance to respond,
33:12
Speaker 1: and they denied him his demand for that, and it
33:15
Speaker 1: made it all the way to the Supreme Court, and
33:17
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court said, you know what, Red Lion, you're wrong.
33:20
Speaker 1: You gotta do this right. So and I since the
33:23
Speaker 1: Supreme Court ruled that that Cook could have equal airtime,
33:27
Speaker 1: this is like I think twelve years or nine years later,
33:30
Speaker 1: and I could not find anywhere if he actually took
33:33
Speaker 1: him up on it or not. But the whole thing
33:35
Speaker 1: was just like a It was an ad hominum attack,
33:38
Speaker 1: an attack on him on Cook because Cook had written
33:41
Speaker 1: a book against Barry Goldwater, who was a presidential candidate
33:46
Speaker 1: at the time, and the people who ran Red Lion
33:49
Speaker 1: didn't like it. Um, so they attacked Cook. But he
33:53
Speaker 1: so they in this ruling though, and this is the
33:55
Speaker 1: whole point, not not that Cook got his time, it
33:59
Speaker 1: was airtime, but that the Supreme Court ruled that the
34:03
Speaker 1: sec applying this fairness doctrine was um good and fine
34:09
Speaker 1: and constitutional, which is a big deal. They ruled that
34:12
Speaker 1: the SEC could constitutionally um exercise this fairness doctrine, which
34:18
Speaker 1: is that was just enormous. Yeah, it was a very
34:21
Speaker 1: very big deal. Uh. The other big kind of landmark
34:24
Speaker 1: case was that same year, UM the Office of Communication
34:28
Speaker 1: of the United Church of Christ at all the FEC
34:34
Speaker 1: another scintillating title. Uh. There was a US appeals court
34:38
Speaker 1: who overturned the FEC's decision not to consider a petition
34:42
Speaker 1: to revoke the license of Lamar Broadcasting w LBT. So
34:47
Speaker 1: these citizens got together civil rights groups and they were like,
34:50
Speaker 1: you know what, this station is awful. They are first
34:53
Speaker 1: of all, they're not covering, um, the civil rights movement,
34:56
Speaker 1: and they're flat out racist and segregationist, and so we're
35:00
Speaker 1: gonna petition this. And the FEC denied the petition UH
35:04
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty four and said citizens don't have the
35:07
Speaker 1: standing to file a petition like this, which is pretty
35:10
Speaker 1: surprising because you know, the citizens are the ones that
35:13
Speaker 1: FEC have always been like fighting for right. It was
35:16
Speaker 1: a little um hanky hanky, it's the word that we
35:19
Speaker 1: used to use. So the petitioners appealed in nineteen sixty six, Uh, yeah,
35:25
Speaker 1: sixty six, the Court of Appeals for d C said,
35:30
Speaker 1: you do have standing to petition the FCC to revoke
35:32
Speaker 1: a license, because that's all about protecting the public interests,
35:36
Speaker 1: which is what the FEC was supposed to be doing
35:39
Speaker 1: in the first place, so get back to work. And finally,
35:42
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty seven, the FEC revisited that petition rejected
35:46
Speaker 1: it again because they said, hey, this station is actually
35:50
Speaker 1: kind of taken some steps since then, and we think
35:52
Speaker 1: they're doing the right thing. Petitioners still weren't happy. They
35:55
Speaker 1: appealed that in in nineteen sixty nine. Uh, the f
35:58
Speaker 1: SEC actually revoked our broadcastings license. They did. As far
36:02
Speaker 1: as as far as I could tell, Lamar Broadcasting was
36:05
Speaker 1: the one and only company to lose their license under
36:09
Speaker 1: the fairness doctrine. Right, um, they never got it back
36:13
Speaker 1: and chuck a little cherry on top. Because Lamar Broadcasting
36:17
Speaker 1: lost the license of w LBT in Jackson, Mississippi. It
36:21
Speaker 1: was up for grabs and it was taken by a
36:25
Speaker 1: majority black owned group that that took over the station.
36:28
Speaker 1: At that point that nice. So um, things seem to
36:33
Speaker 1: be going smoothly for the fairness doctrine. What could go wrong? Well,
36:37
Speaker 1: we'll tell you what could go wrong after a break?
36:39
Speaker 1: How about that? Okay, chuck. So one thing that I've
37:05
Speaker 1: learned is it's not necessarily like the Supreme Court is um,
37:10
Speaker 1: their decisions are are final forever. They kind of shift
37:14
Speaker 1: and move over time over long enough periods of time.
37:17
Speaker 1: And the fairness doctrine is a really good example of that,
37:19
Speaker 1: because in the sixties the Supreme Court ruled pretty clearly
37:24
Speaker 1: the FEC was constitutional. But UM by the end of
37:27
Speaker 1: the seventies the Supreme Court started to side with broadcasters instead.
37:32
Speaker 1: The winds of change kind of blew through there. And
37:35
Speaker 1: there was one case in particular that the Supreme Court
37:37
Speaker 1: heard in ninety nine that UM signaled a a real
37:42
Speaker 1: change for UM the fairness doctrine in the sec applying it.
37:47
Speaker 1: And it was a case that involved w j I
37:50
Speaker 1: MTV and Lansing, Michigan, which is owned by a guy
37:54
Speaker 1: named Harold Gross. Yeah. So uh. The complaint here was
37:58
Speaker 1: that he or the station rather via Harold Harold Gross,
38:03
Speaker 1: had abused their broadcasting power to the detriment of the public.
38:07
Speaker 1: So what he did was he denied airtime to political
38:10
Speaker 1: rivals UM in some cases. In other cases, he censored
38:14
Speaker 1: coverage of local businesses if they didn't advertise with them. Yeah,
38:18
Speaker 1: he was. He was accused of clipping, which is taking
38:21
Speaker 1: like when a when a network delivers a show, it
38:23
Speaker 1: has commercial breaks in it. He would have his editors
38:26
Speaker 1: go through and add even more commercial breaks, which you're
38:28
Speaker 1: not supposed to do. Um, that was a big one.
38:31
Speaker 1: Didn't cover the Jimmy Hoffa disappearance because he didn't like
38:34
Speaker 1: Jimmy Hoffa's politics, even though it was a national and
38:37
Speaker 1: a local story. Yeah. So in ninety five hearing by
38:41
Speaker 1: the FCC said, you know you've you violated the fairness rule.
38:45
Speaker 1: We're taking your license, buddy. But he appealed it and
38:48
Speaker 1: this time he won the appeal, And like you said,
38:51
Speaker 1: this was a big shift in the way things were
38:54
Speaker 1: being thought about as far as the fairness doctrine went. Um. Hey,
38:58
Speaker 1: one one more thing about Harold Gross before we move
39:00
Speaker 1: on this guy. Um. He was such a businessman that
39:04
Speaker 1: when he started his TV station in n w j
39:08
Speaker 1: I M, he was actually one of the first hundred
39:10
Speaker 1: and eight license holders to broadcast on TV. But he
39:14
Speaker 1: wasn't sure that TV was going to stick around, that
39:16
Speaker 1: it was going to take off as a technology, so
39:19
Speaker 1: he built the w j I M facilities so that
39:22
Speaker 1: it could be converted into a motel if TV didn't
39:25
Speaker 1: go anywhere. So the original date w j I m
39:28
Speaker 1: UM TV station had a pool out back what is
39:31
Speaker 1: it now? Do you know what is what? The pool?
39:34
Speaker 1: I don't know. I looked up to see if there
39:36
Speaker 1: was anything um recent about it, and I didn't find
39:39
Speaker 1: any any new stuff. But I cleared I saw a
39:42
Speaker 1: picture of the station, and there's definitely a pool out
39:45
Speaker 1: back from back in the fifties. I guess. So I
39:50
Speaker 1: wonder if you let anybody swimming it or not. Maybe
39:53
Speaker 1: if you advertised, he would have let you. So this
39:57
Speaker 1: was mid to late seventies, and then things really really
40:01
Speaker 1: started changing in the nineteen eighties because, uh, that whole
40:06
Speaker 1: thing about remember when he said putting a pin in
40:08
Speaker 1: uh spectrum scarcity, that was no longer a problem. By
40:13
Speaker 1: the mid nineteen eighties, there were more than ten thousand
40:15
Speaker 1: radio stations, undred TV stations, about seventeen hundred newspapers, And
40:22
Speaker 1: the whole sort of drumbeat was like, wait a minute,
40:26
Speaker 1: there's not a problem here anymore with scarcity, we should
40:29
Speaker 1: be able to do what we want. Because you told
40:31
Speaker 1: newspapers from the very beginning that their free speech was
40:34
Speaker 1: uh protected and they could do whatever they want. Why
40:37
Speaker 1: are we any different? Yeah, that's that's a really big
40:39
Speaker 1: point um that a lot of people pointed to over
40:41
Speaker 1: the years, is why does this just apply to electronic media?
40:46
Speaker 1: Like the print media literally has an editorial page where
40:50
Speaker 1: they come out with positions on candidates and all this stuff.
40:53
Speaker 1: Why doesn't it apply to them? And for years and
40:55
Speaker 1: years and years, it was any smoke can basically go
40:58
Speaker 1: get a newspaper. Printed radio is different because of that
41:02
Speaker 1: spectrum scarcity. But yeah, as the satellite people came along,
41:05
Speaker 1: and as cable came along, that just kind of went
41:08
Speaker 1: out the door. So spectrum scarcity going away, and the
41:11
Speaker 1: fact that the newspaper industry the print media was not
41:15
Speaker 1: regulated anywhere near the same way really kind of removed
41:19
Speaker 1: any remaining foundation for for the fairness doctrine to stand on. Yeah,
41:25
Speaker 1: so in the fecuh kind of got their gears turning
41:31
Speaker 1: and said, you know what, Um, we think this is Uh,
41:36
Speaker 1: we want Congress to review this basically, UM, we're gonna
41:40
Speaker 1: institute a public comment period even and uh, we think
41:45
Speaker 1: we should abandon the personal attack rule and in this
41:48
Speaker 1: case by case thing, right, and yeah, And they did
41:51
Speaker 1: this for like two years, and while the FEC is
41:53
Speaker 1: holding like these public hearings on it, Congress at the
41:57
Speaker 1: same time was saying, well, we don't really want the
42:00
Speaker 1: arness doctrine to go away, and not just the left.
42:02
Speaker 1: There was a bipartisan supported bill that got passed in
42:06
Speaker 1: Congress to codify the fairness doctrine, but it was um
42:11
Speaker 1: vetoed by Reagan and so after that that was basically
42:15
Speaker 1: it for the fairness doctrine. Yeah, the FCC voted, uh
42:19
Speaker 1: unanimously to just get rid of it. They did, and
42:22
Speaker 1: so they didn't actually get rid of it, they just
42:25
Speaker 1: stopped enforcing it, or some parts of it. They kept
42:28
Speaker 1: enforcing I think the personal attack and political editorial provisions
42:34
Speaker 1: up until like two thousand, for like another thirteen years.
42:38
Speaker 1: But the idea that you had to promote um opposing
42:43
Speaker 1: viewpoints on your your television station or your radio station
42:48
Speaker 1: that went away starting in and a lot of people
42:52
Speaker 1: say that really changed the American media landscape big time. Yeah.
43:00
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, it's depending on who you are.
43:06
Speaker 1: I know, I'm trying to dance around this. Um. Depending
43:10
Speaker 1: on who you are, you probably have a very strong
43:12
Speaker 1: opinion about the Fairness Doctrine one way or the other,
43:15
Speaker 1: or you may think it was a mixed thing. Um,
43:17
Speaker 1: it was definitely a flawed policy. I think everyone agrees
43:21
Speaker 1: that it wasn't perfect. Um, but the legacy is really complex. Um.
43:26
Speaker 1: You know, getting rid of it basically opened the door
43:29
Speaker 1: for what we have today, which is a degraded news standard, um,
43:34
Speaker 1: minority viewpoints that aren't necessarily covered. Uh. And how polarized
43:39
Speaker 1: we are because you know, people dug in and they said,
43:42
Speaker 1: all right, I'm gonna start my super conservative radio stations,
43:46
Speaker 1: and then people said, I'm going to start my super
43:48
Speaker 1: conservative liberal uh website and and radio shows, and liberals
43:55
Speaker 1: is gonna listen to theirs, and conservatives are gonna listen
43:57
Speaker 1: to theirs and never between she'll meet right right. And
44:01
Speaker 1: so especially if you have like each side promoting a
44:06
Speaker 1: viewpoint or an agenda um to the detriment of the
44:09
Speaker 1: other side, there's there's like the middle ground is lost,
44:13
Speaker 1: which I mean some people, I know, some people aren't
44:16
Speaker 1: very hip on centrism these days anyway, But I mean
44:21
Speaker 1: you can keep a pretty decent sized society together when
44:24
Speaker 1: you when you kind of follow a centrist access upward
44:29
Speaker 1: and onward, you know. And I think that to me,
44:32
Speaker 1: the fairness doctrine showed that. I mean, like, I don't
44:35
Speaker 1: think it's a big surprise where I fall on whether
44:37
Speaker 1: the fairness doctrine was a good idea or not. But
44:40
Speaker 1: I just don't think it's um Like, I can see
44:45
Speaker 1: saying all these people out here need good information and
44:50
Speaker 1: it's probably not going to just get out there on
44:52
Speaker 1: its own if if we the government don't step in
44:55
Speaker 1: and say here's how we need to get good information out.
44:58
Speaker 1: And I think the current DA landscape is just complete
45:02
Speaker 1: proof positive of that that if you just don't, if
45:05
Speaker 1: you just let it all go free for all, then
45:08
Speaker 1: then you end up with what we have, that this
45:10
Speaker 1: is what the market offers us, echo chambers, echo chambers,
45:14
Speaker 1: polarization and a huge division in the country, um with
45:19
Speaker 1: without anybody saying, well wait, wait, wait, yes, over here,
45:23
Speaker 1: you guys are right. Over here, you guys are right
45:26
Speaker 1: and and things are really messed up. But also what
45:29
Speaker 1: about this other stuff? We kind of all agree on
45:31
Speaker 1: this part and what about this part. Yeah, we have
45:33
Speaker 1: a lot of common ground here. No one's talking about that,
45:35
Speaker 1: and that used to be the role that the media
45:37
Speaker 1: played before. Yeah. I mean, one thing we can say
45:40
Speaker 1: is without the fairness doctrine, um, we may not have
45:44
Speaker 1: gotten any of these majority viewpoints in the nineteen forties
45:47
Speaker 1: and fifties and sixties, people might not have been as
45:50
Speaker 1: well informed except maybe be a newspaper about the civil
45:53
Speaker 1: rights movement, women's rights movement, Um, how bad smoking is,
45:58
Speaker 1: about nuclear power plants, like, all of these things that
46:01
Speaker 1: were sort of in the shadows were now now had
46:04
Speaker 1: a guaranteed platform. Um. But like we mentioned earlier, because
46:09
Speaker 1: they didn't really uh, they had to give these opposing viewpoints.
46:13
Speaker 1: He also could have possibly borne the anti vax movement
46:16
Speaker 1: and the and the climate denial movement and stuff like that.
46:19
Speaker 1: So it was flawed, to be sure. Sure, Yeah, there's
46:24
Speaker 1: from what I understand, like any Democrat to the right
46:29
Speaker 1: of Ralph Nader, which is almost everybody, says, yes, fairness doctrine,
46:34
Speaker 1: what a terrible idea, terrible idea. It was officially repealed
46:37
Speaker 1: in two thousand and eleven, and if you'll think back,
46:39
Speaker 1: that was under the Obama administration. So the Obama administration's
46:43
Speaker 1: FCC was the one that officially took the fairness doctrine
46:47
Speaker 1: off of the books, removed it. Yeah, but I mean
46:50
Speaker 1: that was a purge that was just like there's a
46:52
Speaker 1: bunch of rotten food in the fridge, and why has
46:54
Speaker 1: no one thrown it out yet Yeah, but it was
46:56
Speaker 1: also pretty symbolic, you know, it was it was a
46:58
Speaker 1: symbolic act, whether they handed it or not. But but
47:01
Speaker 1: the the idea that um that it was it was
47:04
Speaker 1: removed by a democratic, um, lefty president's administration is it's
47:11
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's saying something I think. Yeah, here's
47:14
Speaker 1: where we are today. Though there was a pole, a
47:16
Speaker 1: gallop pole. And just last year, in two thousand eighteen,
47:19
Speaker 1: that's found Americans don't trust the news. Uh, they guessed, Uh,
47:26
Speaker 1: let me see, si of what they here is biased,
47:31
Speaker 1: forty percent is inaccurate, and thirty is misinformation. That's uh,
47:37
Speaker 1: those numbers seem low to me. That's not a great
47:40
Speaker 1: place to be in as a country though, No, it's
47:42
Speaker 1: a terrible place. It's a scary place. Like how is
47:44
Speaker 1: this country still together? You know? Um? But and and
47:48
Speaker 1: the other thing is we're gonna get so much gough
47:50
Speaker 1: because we didn't come out and just stay completely down
47:53
Speaker 1: the middle. But I mean, I want to say, like
47:56
Speaker 1: I understand where where people on the right are coming
47:59
Speaker 1: from with this, Like ideologically this is censorship and um,
48:04
Speaker 1: the the prohibition of the exercise of free speech, and
48:09
Speaker 1: that's that is one of that is a a core
48:13
Speaker 1: um founding value of conservativism and libertarianism. So like, I
48:18
Speaker 1: can understand how you look at the fairness doctrine and
48:20
Speaker 1: be like, this is government overreach and its worst and
48:23
Speaker 1: its worst examples. You know. Yeah, but it's like it
48:26
Speaker 1: wasn't It wasn't like state run radio, you know. No,
48:31
Speaker 1: it wasn't like the government, the federal government propagandizing their agenda. Uh.
48:36
Speaker 1: But yeah, it was saying like, hey, you can say
48:39
Speaker 1: this viewpoint, you also have to show the other viewpoint
48:41
Speaker 1: to me, that's almost impossible to argue with. Yeah, and
48:44
Speaker 1: I think don't newspapers of of high standing still on
48:49
Speaker 1: their editorial page kind of print the two opposing opinions
48:53
Speaker 1: side by side. Yeah, that's what op ed stands for,
48:56
Speaker 1: is opposite the editorial page. So the editorial page will
48:59
Speaker 1: be the used papers opinion their editorial board, and then
49:03
Speaker 1: on the literal opposite page is the basically the opposing
49:07
Speaker 1: opinion of that. Yeah, it's just a high journalistic standard.
49:11
Speaker 1: But this is the government saying this. Newspapers do this
49:15
Speaker 1: on their own, I guess, just out of tradition. Um.
49:18
Speaker 1: Whereas electronic media is a little more wild Westy than that.
49:22
Speaker 1: That's right. So um here we are today. Uh, pretty
49:27
Speaker 1: interesting times we live in and it's all because the
49:30
Speaker 1: fairness doctrine went away. Anyway, thanks for listening to this
49:33
Speaker 1: episode of stuff you should know. If you want to
49:36
Speaker 1: know more about the fairness doctrine, just go outside see
49:40
Speaker 1: how you like things. Uh. And since I said that,
49:42
Speaker 1: it's time for listener mail, I'm gonna call this the
49:48
Speaker 1: sound of our voices. I'm sorry, let me say this
49:51
Speaker 1: the color of our voices. Oh yeah, I know what
49:54
Speaker 1: my voice is. Color. This is good. In fact, yours
49:56
Speaker 1: isn't even color. This is more of a field thing.
49:59
Speaker 1: So hey, guys, listened to the episode on perfect pitch.
50:02
Speaker 1: You mentioned that sinistats are often good candidates for having
50:05
Speaker 1: perfect pitch. I fall into the category of being someone
50:08
Speaker 1: who possesses both. I've been serious about my musicianships since
50:12
Speaker 1: my earliest recollections in life, and that's when I began
50:16
Speaker 1: involuntarily hearing all the individual musical notes and their own unique,
50:20
Speaker 1: unchanging colors. For example, the sound of the note F
50:24
Speaker 1: I should have brought in dude, I bought one of
50:26
Speaker 1: those little uh what do you call it? Pitch pipe
50:28
Speaker 1: I got I bought a pitch pipe. Why didn't you
50:31
Speaker 1: bring it in? No? I should have brought it in
50:32
Speaker 1: the one. No harmonica, I should have brought too. I'm
50:34
Speaker 1: gonna buy you one. I would love it. Can you
50:37
Speaker 1: have an engraved to just sure? Okay? Um? So the
50:42
Speaker 1: sound of f for Alison has never not caused a
50:46
Speaker 1: rush of the color orange to sweep over her from
50:48
Speaker 1: head to foot. I also hear people's individual voices and colors.
50:53
Speaker 1: What's unique about voices to me? They're incredibly textured in
50:56
Speaker 1: and of themselves. You guys have voice colors and textures.
51:02
Speaker 1: I love mine, read mine. Josh's voice anytime I hear
51:04
Speaker 1: it sounds like Swede. If Swede Swede could make a
51:10
Speaker 1: sound painted medium to dark brown with a tiny hint
51:13
Speaker 1: of easter egg purple. That is a lovely combo, if
51:17
Speaker 1: you ask me. Chuck's voice, on the other hand, has
51:20
Speaker 1: zero fuzz to it at all. Chuck's voice is very,
51:23
Speaker 1: very metallic, almost shimmery, like you're gazing upon a deep
51:27
Speaker 1: blue green body of water and you can see straight
51:29
Speaker 1: to the bottom. Nice. That's a nice voice right there.
51:32
Speaker 1: These are both great voices. I'm very happy that, I
51:35
Speaker 1: mean who knows what what could have come out of
51:38
Speaker 1: this email? You know, your smells like a puke and
51:42
Speaker 1: yours sounds like nails on a chalkboard. The end. Um,
51:46
Speaker 1: I've come to find out that no two voice colors
51:48
Speaker 1: are exactly the same, kind of like thumb prints and snowflakes.
51:50
Speaker 1: A person's voice color does not morph and to something
51:53
Speaker 1: else either if they suddenly start speaking in another language.
51:56
Speaker 1: And it also has nothing to do with his or
51:58
Speaker 1: her particular uh personality type. So they're not saying you're
52:03
Speaker 1: smooth like swede on like as a person. Oh yes, clearly,
52:06
Speaker 1: I think as a person. The point of the matter,
52:10
Speaker 1: I delight in hearing both of your voices nearly every
52:12
Speaker 1: days a tune into the show. It's become a staple
52:15
Speaker 1: in my daily existence. Keep on being wonderful. That is
52:18
Speaker 1: from Allison, who is at our Salt Lake City show.
52:21
Speaker 1: She interacted with us from the crowd. That's great. Thank
52:24
Speaker 1: you for interacting with us, Alison. We appreciate that it's
52:27
Speaker 1: illegal at our shows. But I think I asked a question.
52:31
Speaker 1: She answered it it's against the rules. That's what they say. Um, well,
52:35
Speaker 1: thanks Alison. That was one of the more interesting emails
52:37
Speaker 1: we've ever received. Frankly, uh, if you want to be
52:41
Speaker 1: like Allison and go to one of our live shows,
52:43
Speaker 1: you will never regret it for a single moment in
52:46
Speaker 1: your entire life. Go to s Y s K Live
52:48
Speaker 1: dot com and get tickets, especially Chicago. And if you
52:52
Speaker 1: want to get in touch with us like Allison did too,
52:55
Speaker 1: you can go onto our website Stuff you Should Know
52:57
Speaker 1: dot com, follow our social links there, or you can
53:00
Speaker 1: send us an email send it off to stuff podcast
53:04
Speaker 1: at i heart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know
53:10
Speaker 1: is a production of i Heeart Radio's How Stuff Works.
53:12
Speaker 1: For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart
53:14
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
53:17
Speaker 1: favorite shows. H