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Selects: How the Fairness Doctrine Worked · Stuff You Should Know

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