Fairness Doctrine
The Fairness Doctrine was a policy implemented by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the United States in the late 1940s, aimed at ensuring broadcasters presented multiple viewpoints on controversial issues. Rooted in the principle of public interest, the doctrine arose from the limited availability of broadcast frequencies, necessitating government oversight to prevent one-sided programming. Under the Fairness Doctrine, broadcasters were required to provide adequate opportunities for opposing perspectives, particularly in news and public affairs programming. However, it did not mandate a balance within individual programs.
The doctrine was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1969, but enforcement posed significant challenges due to the complexities of monitoring broadcasts over time. By the late 1980s, as the number of broadcast outlets increased dramatically, the rationale for the Fairness Doctrine diminished, leading to its repeal in 1987. This deregulation coincided with a rise in politically biased programming, reflecting a shift in the media landscape. The Fairness Doctrine remains a significant topic in discussions about media regulation, freedom of expression, and the responsibilities of broadcasters in a democratic society.
Fairness Doctrine
Enforced: June, 1949-January, 1987
Place: United States (national)
Significance: This Federal Communications Commission (FCC) policy requiring broadcasters to provide balanced and impartial news coverage of controversial community issues was designed to ensure that the public receive diverse information on important issues
A principle underlying freedom of expression in the United States is the belief that if truth and falsehood meet in an open marketplace of ideas, truth will win out. So long as sufficiently diverse opinions are expressed, the democratic process will function at its best. To ensure that such diversity exists, government must not place any prior restraints on the press. Government regulation of expression is permissible only when there are excesses that government has a right to punish.
This principle has long governed the print media, but its application to broadcast media has posed special problems. Whereas a potentially unlimited number of newspaper outlets can exist in any given geographic region, the same was not always true of broadcast outlets—which historically depended on the limited breadth of the electromagnetic spectrum to transmit their signals. Unrestricted use of the airwaves can result in signals interfering with each other so that no voices at all are heard. For this reason, the Radio Acts of 1912 and 1927 and the federal Communications Act of 1934 required broadcast station operators to be federally licensed and to broadcast in the public interest.
The fairness doctrine that arose in the late 1940’s was based on the scarcity of the broadcast spectrum theory. The principle of public ownership of all the airwaves, and the concomitant belief that broadcasters must represent public interests, were invoked to justify greater government restrictions on expression in broadcasting than in the print media. The doctrine itself grew out of a practice begun in the 1920’s of revoking the licenses of radio stations that broadcast one-sided propaganda messages.
In a document released in June, 1949, In the Matter of Editorializing by Broadcast Licensees, the FCC ruled that the Mayflower Doctrine of 1941, which prohibited editorializing, was no longer valid. In place of that doctrine’s ban on editorializing, the FCC instituted a new “fairness doctrine,” which held that broadcasters must provide adequate time on their station to discuss important and controversial issues, and that broadcasters must ensure that all significant viewpoints on such issues be covered. In 1969 the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of this doctrine in Red Lion Broadcasting v. Federal Communications Commission, a case arising from a Pennsylvania radio station’s refusal to comply with an FCC order to grant time to the author of a critical book on Senator Barry Goldwater to rebut accusations that evangelist Billy James Hargis had leveled against him on the air.
The fairness doctrine did not require stations to provide a variety of viewpoints within individual programs, and the doctrine applied only to news and public affairs programs, not to entertainment shows. The doctrine’s enforcement required monitoring news broadcasts and documentary programming over extended periods of time—a task almost impossible to execute fully. The only station to lose its license for violating the fairness doctrine was the conservative, fundamentalist radio station WUXR in Media, Pennsylvania. In 1970 the FCC refused to renew the station’s license because of local complaints about its one-sided broadcasts and its attack on persons whom it denied permission to reply. Two years later a federal circuit court upheld the FCC’s action in the case of Brandywine Main Line v. Federal Communications Commission.
Equal time
Both broadcasters and the public often confuse the fairness doctrine with section 315 of the federal Communications Act of 1934. That law required any station broadcasting a promotion for a legally qualified candidate for public office to allow all other legally qualified candidates for the same office equal opportunities to use its broadcasting facilities. Such broadcast time did not necessarily have to be free, but its cost could not exceed that charged to the first candidate. Regular newscasts and appearances by candidates in news spots, news interviews, and news documentaries were exempted, as are certain national political debates. Under fairness doctrine provisions, equal time was not required for opposing views, and stations were not required to give equal time to particular viewpoints.
Personal Attacks and Political Editorializing
Two rules that were originally part of the fairness doctrine that have remained in force involve criticisms of individuals or groups and endorsements of political candidates. If a station attacked the honesty, character, or integrity of any person or group, the fairness doctrine required the station to notify targets of its attacks within a week; it also had to provide them with summaries of the attacks, and offer them reasonable opportunities to respond on the air. Attacks on public figures and foreign individuals were allowed, however, as well as general criticisms of individuals attacking their ability or knowledge. Such attacks had to be made during discussions of controversial issues for the rule to apply.
Whenever a station endorsed a candidate for office, all other candidates for the same office had to be notified and given reasonable opportunities to respond. However, if a station opposed only one candidate for office, then only that candidate had to be notified and given an opportunity to respond. A consequence of these rules was that stations rarely editorialized about political candidates and they were more likely to express their opposition to certain candidates than their support for others.
Rise and Fall of the Doctrine
The fairness doctrine was successfully applied to cigarette advertising in 1967 but its extension to advertising generally soon became unwieldy and was dropped. In the 1980’s new broadcast technologies increased the number of broadcasting voices available to any given geographical region; as a result scarcity was no longer considered a paramount problem. The old argument that a single station had to present the viewpoints of all factions in its community seemed no longer to be valid. By the late 1980’s there were nearly ten thousand radio stations and twelve hundred television stations throughout the United States, compared to 1,750 daily newspapers. During the 1990’s the number of broadcast stations continued to increase steadily, while the number of newspapers declined. In these changing conditions, a new rationale of broadcast deregulation, based on demands of the marketplace, came into being with the support of Republican members of Congress and Republican presidents. In 1987 the FCC ruled that the fairness doctrine was ineffective and that fairness in broadcasting could best be served by the marketplace.
A Democrat-controlled Congress tried to re-establish the doctrine rule in 1987, but President Ronald Reagan vetoed the measure. His successor, George Bush, announced that he would veto any attempts to pass such a bill. Later attempts to reenact such a doctrine also failed. Abandonment of the rule led to a rapid proliferation of politically biased talk shows, such as that of Rush Limbaugh.
Bibliography
The fairness doctrine and other relevant FCC documents, such as the Blue Book, the Mayflower Doctrine, and Red Lion case, are collected in Frank J. Kahn’s Documents of American Broadcasting (3d ed. Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 1978). Donald M. Gillmor et al., Mass Communication Law: Cases and Comment (5th ed. St. Paul: West Publishing, 1990), and Don R. Pember, Mass Media Law (7th ed. Madison, Wis.: Brown & Benchmark, 1996), cover the legal histories of the doctrine and other restrictions on media expression. Steven J. Simmons examines the doctrine’s conceptual history, its implications for advertising, and the difficulty of defining issues in The Fairness Doctrine and the Media (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978). Hugh Carter Donahue’s The Battle to Control Broadcast News: Who Owns the First Amendment? (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1989) gives a complete history of the doctrine through its demise, attempts by Congress to legislate the doctrine, and President Ronald Reagan’s veto.