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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: KonKilo who wrote (28118)	9/6/2006 9:20:18 PM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542946

I did a bit of googling on the Fairness Doctrine and came up with some ambiguous results. I'm not certain I yet see how it contributed, strongly, to the failure of journalists to police "facticity." The more I read these the more I think this all addresses a different issue from the one which concerns me. Your concern, I take it, is that a requirement for media outlets to represent multiple points of view contributes to the failure of journalists to question the accuracy of political spin. What are the connections in your mind? Here are some sources. 1. The widipedia entry: en.wikipedia.org 2. An outfit called the Museum of Broadcast Communications: museum.tv 3. Here's one from an outfit that calls itself The Wisdom Fund that has a bit more concrete stuff. But I'm still not certain I see the issues: twf.org 4. And here's a piece by a writer, Steve Rendell, a new name to me, from Common Dreams that takes a position which strikes me as close to the one you are advocating. commondreams.org

To: KonKilo who wrote (28118)	9/7/2006 8:45:56 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542946

The fairness doctrine was IMO of dubious constitutionality and as a purely practical idea would only be beneficial if the number of media outlets was very small. Requiring a particular media outlet to present "both sides" arguments is more likely to inhibit them from explicitly preventing either side than cause them to give free air time to the side they oppose. If there where only a couple of media outlets it might arguably be somewhat reasonable, but if one outlet supports one side, the other side has many other choices to get its message out.