When was the Fairness Doctrine Repealed?

[coloradodem2005]

How much good did it do? I was probably really young when it happened.

[kaitykaity]

1. It wasn't repealed necessarily as much as it was

struck down by a three-judge panel that included Robert
Bork and Antonin Scalia in 1986.

Then the RW talk radio boom was born.

[coloradodem2005]

3. Did it exist before that?

Was it used to keep the media "fair and balanced".

[kaitykaity]

4. Huh?

You're not serious, right?

[tom_paine]

5. Ahhh, the Three-Judge Panel, an Achilles Heel of Liberty

The Busheviks ahve shown us that Panels should ALWAYS have more than Three "judges" (or whatever you'd call the Nazi-style judges like Bork, Fat Tony Scalia, Larry Silberman etc) because it's so edasy to stack and infiltrate them and make them lawless, as the Bork/Scalia/Silberman triumvirate who could have just as easily worked for Adolf Hitler, though the overt racism and bloody brutality might have troubled them SLIGHTLY, even though it was directed at Liberals.

Plus, even though he today is a Kinder and Genlter Nazi, Siulberman's Jewishness would not have allowed him to serve Hitler as he serves Bush.

Who says there's no such thing as progress?

[kaitykaity]

7. I think if we get the House and Senate back,

we should recall and reconfirm (or NOT) every single judge
that Bush appointed to any and all courts.

I don't think those appointments are valid given Bush's
court-appointed status at the time.

[tom_paine]

10. That's UnConstitutional and WE have to follow the Constitution

Unlike the Imperial Family.

[kaitykaity]

11. No it's not.

Bush's selection was extra-constitutional. SCOTUS
had no role in a state-run election.

So everything that followed is extra-constitutional, and
those wrongs require radical remedy.

[papau]

2. Needed to be renewed by Regulation - Reagan Refused, then Dem Law veto'd

The lack of regulation by Reagan was ruled by Court as OK around 1986 - give away of air rights for public service notwithstanding

The Congress passed a law to restore Fairness Doctrine - and Reagan Veto'd in 87

[KurtNYC]

6. Conservatives didn't gobble up the media

until the Fairness doctrine was struck down. In spite of its pervasive presence, the media business is not a big money maker relative to things like energy, defense contracting, etc. It was a dirty business they didnt want until they could use it to their own ends. They used lawsuits and other manipulation to financially weaken media entities one by one and then buy them.

[mac56]

8. Good analysis, Kurt.

Welcome to DU.

[ibegurpard]

9. The bigger culprit was the Telecommunications Act of 1995

which removed many barriers to media mergers. Look back at media coverage and you can virtually pin a sea change to after that point in time.

[whirlygigspin]

12. Father Coughlin loved Jesus too

The scrapping of the Fairness Doctrine, like the more recent "what's wrong with torture?" and "should we really bother respecting the Geneva conventions?" debate, leaves one to wonder if man is truly an intensely stupid and selfish animal that cannot learn from it's own past.

These things were made LAW for a REASON, least we forget.

Father Coughlin should remind you.


from: http://www.commondreams.org/views02/1203-08.htm

Modern talk radio as a major force in America started in 1926, when Catholic priest Father Charles E. Coughlin took to the airwaves. By the mid-1930s, as many as a full third of the entire nation - an estimated 45 million people - listened to his weekly broadcasts. His downfall, and the end of the 15-year era of talk radio he'd both created and dominated, came in the early 1940s when the nation was at war and Hitler was shipping millions of Jews to the death camps. For reasons still unknown (Alzheimer's is suspected), Coughlin launched into hard-right anti-Semitic tirades in his broadcasts, blaming an international Jewish conspiracy for communism, the Great Depression, World War II, and most of the world's other ills. His sudden shift to the radical right disgusted his listeners, and led his superiors in the Catholic Church to demand he retire from radio and return to his parish duties where he died in relative obscurity. Many say the Fairness Doctrine came about in part because of Coughlin.