George Will: Broadcast 'Fairness' Fouls Out

This weekend, George Will had a great Washington Post column opposing the Un-Fairness Doctrine. In "Broadcast 'Fairness" Fouls Out," Will writes in part:

Reactionary liberalism, the ideology of many Democrats, holds that inconvenient rights, such as secret ballots in unionization elections, should be repealed; that existing failures, such as GM, should be preserved; and, with special perversity, that repealed mistakes, such as the "fairness doctrine," should be repeated. That Orwellian name was designed to disguise the doctrine's use as the government's instrument for preventing fair competition in the broadcasting of political commentary. Because liberals have been even less successful in competing with conservatives on talk radio than Detroit has been in competing with its rivals, liberals are seeking intellectual protectionism in the form of regulations that suppress ideological rivals.

. . . today there are about 14,000 radio stations, twice as many as in 1969; 18.9 million subscribers to satellite radio, up 17% in 12 months; and that 86% of households with either cable or satellite television receive an average of 102 of the 500 available channels. Because daily newspapers are much more scarce than are radio and television choices, should there be a fairness doctrine for the New York Times?

. . . whereas in 1980 there were fewer than 100 talk radio programs, today there are more than 1,500 news or talk radio stations. . . . some liberals now say: The problem is not maldistribution of opinion and information but too much of both. Until recently, liberals fretted that the media were homogenizing America into blandness. Now they say speech management by government is needed because of a different scarcity -- the public's attention, which supposedly is overloaded by today's information cornucopia.

And these worrywarts say the proliferation of radio, cable, satellite broadcasting and Internet choices allows people to choose their own universe of commentary, which takes us far from the good old days when everyone had the communitarian delight of gathering around the cozy campfire of the NBC-ABC-CBS oligopoly. Being a liberal is exhausting when you must simultaneously argue for illiberal policies on the basis of dangerous scarcity and menacing abundance. If reactionary liberals, unsatisfied with dominating the mainstream media, academia and Hollywood, were competitive on talk radio, they would be uninterested in reviving the fairness doctrine. . . .

ACTION ALERT: If you are concerned about Free Speech and Conservative Values, after reading George Will's article, please take a moment to:

• Email a Letter to The Washington Post expressing your agreement and let them know why you oppose the Un-Fairness Doctrine. Letter guidelines: Make sure your letters are fewer than 200 words, and that you include your home address, e-mail address, and home and business telephone numbers.
• Sign the Protect Fairness Petition.

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