How the Fairness Doctrine Worked

Back in the day, broadcasters were bound by law to provide contrasting opinions on political matters. Why? Because of the Fairness Doctrine. What happened to it? Listen in and find out. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everybody comes see us, because we're coming to see you. Specifically,
if you live in Chicago. On July, we're gonna be
at the Harris Theater, and the following night we're going
to be at the Dan Fourth Music Hall in Toronto.
And that's just the beginning, that's right. We're also going
to our beloved Wilburt Theater, which we own in Boston
on October twenty nine, and then our first visit to Portland,

(00:21):
Maine at the State Theater in August. Yep. That's going
to be followed in October. We're gonna take a little
break because that's a lot of touring in October. On
the ninth we're going to be at the Plaza Live
in Orlando, and then on October ten, we're gonna be
at the Civic Theater in New Orleans, that's right. And
in October we're gonna round it all out at the
Bellhouse in Brooklyn for three shows October yep. So go

(00:46):
to s Y s K live dot com for tickets
and information and we will see you starting this July
in Chicago. Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production
of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chook Bryant,

(01:10):
and there's Jared Dog the road Land of All Time
over there, and this is stuff you should know. I
gotta pep it up a little bit, you know? Is
that what that was? You gotta screw it up a
little bit, That's what I meant to say, speaking of
screwing up Chicago, Illinois, screwing up it is I was.

(01:36):
I was trying to think about this, like which approach
should we take. Should we should we just outright lie
and say, like, there's very few tickets left, so you
better go get them now now? Or should we shame
them and say there are plenty of tickets left, a
disappointing amount of tickets left. I think we should just
be honest and not shame them, but express our disappointment.
Nothing works better then disappointment. You know, Chicago, we really

(02:02):
expected a little more from you than this. So if
you're confused about what we're talking about, probably because you
haven't heard, and that's our fault. About our live shows
coming up all around the country. Two cities we've never
been to before. Yeah, yeah, we've never been to Orlando before.

(02:23):
We've never been to Portland, Maine before, that's right. But
we are going to Chicago again because we thought Chicago
loved us in July at the Harris Theater and then
Toronto the next night on July. They're buying a lot
of tickets. They love us up there. Yeah, at the
Day and fourth. Uh. And then Boston August twenty nine,
Portland May and August, Orlando and New Orleans October nine

(02:44):
and ten, and then Brooklyn October three night run at
the Bellhouse in Brooklyn, which is gonna be great. But again, Toronto,
you're doing great, guys. Keep it up. Chicago, you could
and to step it up a little bit. You've got
a little bit of time. But why wait you know, yeah,
I mean the seats are only going to get worse.

(03:06):
True dat, Chuck, true dat. So just go to s
y s K Live for our home or touring home
on the web thanks to our buddies at squarespace. Oh yeah,
and uh now let's talk about the fairness doctrine. Okay,
we actually need to um. If this were say, pre seven,

(03:28):
we would need to have Jerry come in and say, so,
here's all the reasons why you shouldn't buy tickets to
stuff you should know live if we were going to
follow the fairness doctrine. But it's not. And as a
matter of fact, I wonder how podcasting would how this
would apply or have applied to podcasting if it had
still been around, or if podcasting would have been one

(03:50):
of those things that kind of grew up around the
fairness doctrine. Who knows, but it's a fascinating Um what
are those called? When uh, when an impossible Sure there's
another word for it, when it's something that just can't
possibly happen, kind of like speculative fiction or something like that.
I can't remember. But you know, since podcast don't fall

(04:12):
under the FCC, then doubt if it would have mattered.
Oh yeah, I guess that's that's true. Huh, Yeah, we
could if we wanted to. Right now, we could say
every curse word, every awful thing in the world under
the sun. We elect not to do that everyone. I
heard a radio DJ the other day say, um, I
know you want to curse so bad right now, this

(04:34):
is why we're getting a podcast, And I was like, yeah,
I guess we could. I guess we could curse, but
it's I like that we don't chuck. I do too.
And if you want to hear me curse just a
you can come to a live show true because it
happens a little bit, or be you can just join
me over at movie crush. I cuss had a lot

(04:54):
over there. Yeah. I think at first people were like, oh,
and then now I think people go listen in part
to hear you curse. They like to hear that blue
streak coming out of the real me. Oh, I'd like
to think that both sides are the real You put
together well for roughly two and a half hours a week,

(05:15):
this is the real me. Do you find it difficult
not to curse on on the show? Uh? No, I
mean I'm fully used to it by now, but I
definitely am not as fully freewheeling as I normally am. Yeah,
I guess I should say I want to give the
impression that I'm like some you know, Flanders type or whatever,
curse pretty routinely myself in regular life. But I guess

(05:38):
I find a kind of comforting just knowing that there's
a there's a safe space where I don't say, the
afford a lot. You should start another podcast just called
filth Floren Filth with Josh Clark. Okay, that's a pretty
good idea. But none of this has to do with
the nineteen twenties except for the fact that people did

(06:01):
not curse on the radio back then either because there
weren't a lot of people on the radio in the
nineteen twenties. No, actually, pre or early early early nineteen twenties,
that is, right pre November nine, there was not much
going on on the radio aside from Morse Code, some
Ham Radio operators, and remember we did a pretty good

(06:21):
episode on Ham Radio, remember correctly. Yeah, Well, one of
the things I remember about that Ham Radio episode is
that there was a kind of a whole hacker antarchic
ethos um surrounding the early days of radio. You know,
it's just a total free for all. You can broadcast
on whatever station you wanted to and get in arguments with,

(06:42):
you know, the government if you wanted to, who who
cared there was. There was not a lot of ways
to trace anybody. So there was a lot of anything
goes mentality among the early Ham radio operators. But but
that was basically all you would hear is people saying like, um, like, hey,
how's it kind of thing. You know, maybe some heavy breathing.

(07:03):
And then in November, station called k d k A
actually organized itself and the first broadcast UM that it
put out was reading the election results from the James
Cock James Cox, Oh my gosh, I almost just violated
FCC rules dirty talk James Cox, Uh, Warren Harding presidential election.

(07:30):
It was the first commercial UM licensed radio broadcast in
the world. I think, yeah, I think that's a great
trivia question if someone were to say, what was what
city you know hosted or whatever was part of the
first radio commercial radio broadcast Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, uh, And the

(07:51):
follow up would be, and what did they broadcast federal
a presidential election outcome? Which was a big deal because
it's weird to think about in ninety that people all
over the country we're waiting for that morning paper to
come out. Except in Pittsburgh. They knew, right, they did know,
And not everybody in Pittsburgh, just the people who had

(08:13):
basically built their own radios because that was the radios
that were around. They were pretty much pretty much. But
the fact that this happened in words spread pretty quickly. Yeah,
some people in Pittsburgh knew the election results because they
were listening to the radio, and they ran around yelling
that out and said we heard it on a radio,
and everyone's like these people, lock them up. Yeah. And

(08:37):
also other little known fact, the first song played on
the radio was Radio Killed the newspaper Star. Did you
just make that up? Or did you have that prep?
I just made it up? Okay, good job, thank you,
man Um, I'm glad I got like that. Grudging good
job because there was almost contempt in that first initial well,
because off the cuff, that's a great joke. But if

(08:59):
he works up that for a few hours, then I
nont no. When's the last time I workeshop the joke?
I don't know. Okay, you don't let you keep it
a close to the guarded secret. So okay. So here's
the point. This is the reason we're even talking about
that first broadcast is because that was November ninety. By
nine four, I think they're in in in like twenty

(09:21):
thousand radios n four. There are one and a half
million radios in the United States. By nineteen thirty eight
of every household in America had a radio, and so
there was this massive transition from distributing news and making

(09:42):
sure everybody was up to date on all the information
they needed to be like a smart voter or hold
like political or social or cultural opinions. Um. That transition
moved from newspapers from print, which still hung around, but
over to radio. Radio became team much um, much more

(10:02):
prevalent as far as the spread of information to an
increasingly large number of people went in the United States
in a very short time, in like twenty years. Yeah. So, um,
in the nineteen forties, the FCC and you know, there's
some background to all this that will get to but
we haven't even really said what the fairness doctrine is yet. Uh.

(10:25):
Finally in ninete um that the US government said, you
know what, we need some help here. We're a little
bit worried that um geez, somebody could some private citizen
who's wealthy could go and buy all the radio stations
and essentially propagandize the news and there's nothing we can
do about it. Yeah. So basically what they said was this,

(10:48):
there is one thing we can do about it. We
can flex our muscle as the government and specifically say
you broadcasters can't do that, that's right. Via something called
the Fairness Doctrine, which had the overall goal of basically,
and it's it's very kind of cute to look back

(11:09):
at this time period, but its initial goal was to
make sure that all the information on the on the
radio waves was good information and true and fair and enriching.
And there there's only so much space on a radio dial.
So and this is this is very critical that there
were a limited number of frequencies available. Yes, frequency scarcity.

(11:31):
I think, yeah, that's just put a pin in that,
because that's a very big deal. Is how this waighed
in the favor of the fairness doctrine and then also
kind of helped kill it in some ways. But basically,
the very progressive you that public interest outweigh private interest
in the public has a right to really good information
over the free speech of the broadcaster. Even yes, so

(11:54):
you just you just hit it right on the head
like that is the crux of the fairness doc drin
And it seems like okay, depending on your viewpoint, either
either like the most um vile idea ever or just
a completely sensible idea. And the reason that it can
present the same these two totally different um opinions is

(12:18):
because this idea, the fairness doctrine, is it sits right
at the heart of the difference between the right and
the left, between conservativism and libertarianism and and liberalism right,
and it is it comes down to this, like if
you if you have to promote um public intercourse, like

(12:41):
people understanding not doing it in public, but I mean discourse,
the public intercourse. So yeah, I guess doing it in
public if you're going to promote public discourse and protected
as a government saying like the the like, it's the
role of government to say, we need to make sure
that the quality of the information that's getting out there

(13:03):
is protected, and and that we have to do that.
We have to limit what broadcasters can say. We have
to curtail free speech. Two people on the right like,
right there, full stop. That's a problem. That's an issue.
It's it has fatally flawed because you are curtailing the
free speech of somebody, whether it's a whether it's NBC

(13:26):
or Joe Schmo who wants to say something on the radio.
It doesn't matter. You're curtailing free speech, and therefore that
is wrong. People on the left say, well, whoa, whoa,
this is the this is this is a privilege to
broadcast on the radio. And in order to protect the
larger public and its interests, we have to curtail that

(13:48):
free speech of the very narrowed money, moneyed interests that
can afford a license to broadcasts. And and there's no
way to reconcile the two. You can't. It's you have
to choose a side. You have to form an opinion
one way or the other. And whatever you choose is
your larger view of whether you're a liberal or whether

(14:10):
you're conservative. Yeah, pretty much. Um, I mean it fell
along those lines back then and stilled us today. Even
though the fairness doctrine isn't around, the ideology is, well,
it keeps getting brought out and kind of you know, um,
forced along a like an angry parade route and in
order to kind of say like, look, look, look what

(14:30):
the government is capable of doing. Look at the overreach
they really want to do. Don't let them do it
again with X. You know. So it is. It's a
huge flashpoint. And it's understandable why it seems like so
um kind of limp and bureaucratic and boring. But when
you dig into the history of the whole thing and
even the contemporary idea behind it, it's a huge flashpoint

(14:53):
politically in the United States. Yeah. So it had a
couple of main components, and then within that a cup
of big, big rules, very important rules. The first the
components were UM They were known together as the fairness rule,
which is, private broadcasters must report on my matters of
public interest, like it's a responsibility of you as a broadcaster,

(15:15):
that's right. Uh. And private broadcasters must cover opposing perspectives
regarding that public interest. It's a that's a big one.
And then the little rules there, the personal attack rules
said that if you're a broadcaster and you are going
to run a negative story UM on somebody or something
prior to that, you have to let these people know

(15:37):
or this organization know and give them time to respond
on the air. And then the political editorial rule, which
is private broadcasters that air editorial programming that endorses a
political candidate must inform other candidates and offer them time
to respond on air. Uh. Not to be confused with
the equal time rule, that's that's different. Yeah. The equal

(15:59):
time rule is is why debates UM have are supposed
to have all candidates, because you're supposed to if you
give one candidate time air time to say, hey, here's
my platform. You're supposed to give all other candidates the
equal amount of time, and that that political editorial rule
kind of it's close to it, and it follows in

(16:20):
the same tradition and principle. But really the personal attack
role and the political editorial rule that we're part of
the fairness doctrine, that's just like the foundation of of
good journalism. Basically, it was not they're not radical ideas.
That's good point. So the idea though that that public
that are that private broadcasters have to talk about issues

(16:41):
and then have to air opposing viewpoints, that is that
is kind of controversial because it's saying like he we
we the government are saying you have to do this,
this is your responsibility. And the idea that the government
even has control over air waves is is in dispute,
but it actually dates pretty are back and we'll talk

(17:02):
about the background, the backstory behind the fairness doctrine after
a message. How about that? It sounds good, okay, Chuck.

(17:31):
So there there's one thing to really understand what we're
talking about here. Initially we're talking about radio waves and
then eventually TV waves, and then that eventually turned into
the Internet. But all these things, especially something like air
air waves for a radio and TV, these exist naturally, right,
There's not like a government factory that produces radio waves

(17:54):
and then the government can say, well, we we produce these,
so we can divu that's a it's it's an artificial
idea that the government can say we regulate these air
waves because it's citizens listening to the stuff that's broadcast
on the airwaves, and it's private companies broadcasting on the
airwaves using equipment that's manufactured by other private companies. So

(18:15):
the government is insinuating itself and saying, well, well, this
is too important to leave to the market. We have
to regulate this in some ways, and we're going to
do that. And the whole thing actually started, um with
the Titanic, to tell you the truth, the Titanic ship,
the Titanic ship, the very one ship that's right. Uh.

(18:37):
Leading up to the Titanic, you know, radio is being used,
um and quite a bit a maritime communication. Uh. In fact,
we even passed the Ship Act of nineteen ten, which
required ships leaving the United States to have radio equipment
to know how to use it, uh, and sort of
laid out some basic broadcasting standards. But what they didn't

(18:57):
do was say, all right, we're gonna signed radio frequencies um,
and we're gonna like reserve a channel for emergencies only. Uh.
This kind of stung them because a couple of years
after that, a little boat called the RMS Titanic ship
the Titanic, it wasn't a little boat, it was a
ocean liner. Sure, I used to know the difference between

(19:21):
ocean liner and a cruise ship. I think ocean liners
are trans atlantic. Is that is that the deal? I've
never heard the difference. I think that's it the same
or something. And I think an ocean liner specifically can
cross the two different continents. I got Yeah, I guess
the cruise ship could just hug the coast or something
like that. But I might be making all that up. So, Uh,

(19:46):
the Titanic sank. There was a lot of radio traffic
going on as the disaster breaks out, obviously, so even
though this uh in Newfoundland they heard very early on
and picked up this distress call, they couldn't really get
it out because everything was all clogged up. Yeah, there
are a lot of ham radio operators screwing things up

(20:06):
at the time. That's right, and that's what prompted the
Radio Act of nineteen twelve UM, which was sort of
the beginnings of the foundation of what would eventually become
the Fairness doctrine, because what it did was it established
spectrum allocation and the FCC basically said, hey, listen, uh,
if you want to broadcast, you can't just broadcast. You
gotta come to us and get a license. Yeah. Initially

(20:29):
it was the Commerce Department that was that was um
issuing licenses, and then came the Radio Act of that
formed the Radio Commission, and they started handling licenses. But
not only did they start saying, Okay, you're a broadcaster,
here's your license, this is the frequency that you can
um broadcast on. Prior to that that was around in

(20:51):
the Radio Act, that was the Commerce Department that did that,
but there was no way to police it. And so
if you were say NBC Radio and the there were
a bunch of people broadcasting on your frequency at seven pm,
you just switched to Yeah, well no, you just switched
to a different frequency and start broadcasting, and so there's
no way to police it. Well, with the Radio Act

(21:12):
of and the creation is Radio Commission, there was a
way to police it, because you could have your license
revoked and if you kept broadcasting, guys would come to
your house and kidnap your family. Yeah. But the really
important thing, and this is how it uh not your family.
The really important thing was that established what we talked

(21:33):
about before, which is spectrum scarcity. There's only so much
space now if everyone has to apply for a license,
who wants to broadcast? UM, It's just it's it was
very key in in the setup and then, like I said,
eventual downfall of the fairness doctrine. Yeah, because it says
this like, Okay, here's the full here's the full spectrum

(21:53):
the radio spectrum that we can broadcast on UM, and
we're going to carve it up and each person gets
a specific frequency to broadcast on. That's that means that
there's a finite number of frequencies. So there's a finite
number of licenses, which means that not everybody can have
a a license to broadcast. Which means that that the

(22:16):
people who do have that license to broadcast have a
very important privilege afforded to them. And because it's a
privilege because the government has insinuated itself and said we're
doling out these privileges. We've decided we the government have
decided that that you have a responsibility to present fair
and balanced reporting to the government to the public, including

(22:41):
basically all sides of an issue, like you have a
responsibility that supersedes your right to free speech as a broadcaster.
That was That's what Spectrum scarcity created, right. Uh, this
radio act Um. While it did establish that, it kind
of made some errors basically and how they set it up.

(23:03):
There are a lot of misspellings. Yeah, there are a
lot of misspellings. But they would say basically to the broadcasters,
you have to air content in support of quote, public convenience,
interest or necessity end quote. But they didn't really define
what that was, which, by by the way I looked
at up, I was like, what does public convenience mean?
Apparently the UK it means a public toilet and that's

(23:24):
the only definition I could ever find for it. So
somebody just made that up. The air content about public
toilets actually like that apart from naked gun it's just
nothing but the sounds of people peeing. Um. But this
is a big problem because if something isn't clearly defined,
then it can't be Uh, it can't be enforced, right,

(23:47):
you know. So in they knew that this was a problem.
This was how many years later, like seven years later,
and they said, you know what, we need to issue
another act because we're the federal government. And so the
Federal Communications Act replaced the Radio Act, the FEC was born,
replaced the Radio Commission, and the f SEC said, all right,

(24:09):
the first thing we gotta do is define what this
public interest thing is all about, right, because not only
does it make it difficult to enforce, it makes it
difficult to follow. So like, even if you're a broadcasting
you're like, I totally agree with this. I do have
a right and responsibility. Uh, what's this public public convenience thing? Again?
Like how do I do this? What am I supposed
to be doing? And if it's not defined, yeah, you

(24:31):
can't enforce it. You also can't follow it if you
want to follow it. So there was just too much
gray area. And so the FCC um when this was created,
this idea of um, okay, we're gonna set about create
like defining this stuff and really generating this idea of
what it means to be a responsible broadcaster. It happened
at a really liberal time in America's history, right after

(24:53):
the New Deal had really kind of come along and
changed the complexion of America pretty dramatically, and liberalism and
progressivism had really set in and was entrenched in the
fabric of American politics. And so there was this idea
that the best way to prevent broadcasters from from asserting

(25:17):
and overbearing influence on public discourse because they had the
loudest voice, because they had the radio licenses right, was
to just say, you guys can't editorialize at all. And
this became known as the Mayflower Decision or the Mayflower doctrine.
It was a nineteen forty one FCC ruling that basically said,

(25:38):
you know what, um, you guys, you guys have to
basically be neutral in that you can't you can't say anything,
you can't present any particular side. If we find out
that you guys are promoting, say the policy agenda or
the favorite politics of like your station owner or your
parent company or something like that, you're trouble. And that

(26:01):
was kind of like the the the line that they
drew no editorializing whatsoever, that's right, and that um, that
really sort of laid the groundwork in a big, big
way for the fairness doctrine, even though the fairness doctrine
sort of undid that and said, well, you know, editor
you can editorialize, but you just have to do it
on both sides, right, you have to present present, prevent

(26:21):
present both sides. And like, on the one hand, that
was a gift to the to the broadcasters right there
saying okay, you can you can use your own voice,
you can state your own opinion, you can support your
own political candidate, but you have to give air time
to the other political candidate. You have to give air
time to people with an opposing view of what you

(26:43):
just said. So it was it was kind of like
a compromise, but it was also a weakening of the
progressivist agenda, I guess yeah. And the broadcasters did not
like it for sure, because again they were still sort
of confused about what what is public and poor didn't
mean we're not even sure you know, everything is decided

(27:03):
and applied on a case by case basis in other words, yeah,
in other words, if somebody, uh just files a complaint,
basically they will take up that complaint and hear that complaint.
But it wasn't like some like big sweeping thing. No,
but it was also Chuck, that's so that that means
that it's um, it's a capricious an arbitrary basically applying

(27:25):
the rule on a case by case basis rather than
a sweeping regulation. But it's also a weakness because it
means that the SEC is saying, we'll leave it to you,
the broadcasters, to police yourselves. We're only gonna act when
somebody complains. Yeah, So what happened in a lot of
cases was some radio stations were like, you know what,
I'm not even gonna go there, and I'm gonna avoid

(27:46):
controversy um at all, you know altogether, because I don't
think we pointed out, uh, it wasn't just about politics.
It was basically covered controversial issues in general, like and
that this will play a big part, like everything from
climate denial to the anti vax movement in the nineteen eighties,
Like they all had to have equal time under the

(28:08):
fairness doctrine. And a lot of people point to the
fairness doctrine as like how these movements got jumped started
to begin with because they didn't put those opinions in context.
They were just like, you know, they didn't say this
is very scientifically valid and now here's the opposing viewpoint
which has no science to back it up, right exactly,

(28:29):
And and that was the fact that they didn't do that.
They were airing on the side of caution UM over editorializing,
but also probably they were trying to make sure that
everybody was was not offended. They didn't offend either side
because they didn't want to be boycotted with advertising to
or find sure. Yeah, so that was a big problem

(28:51):
with the fairness doctrine is that it was ill defined.
It was opened the door for opposing viewpoints that that
that put them on equal footing or equal ground with
with UM with other viewpoints that were saying scientifically backed,
which created what's called the false balance problem. UM. And

(29:11):
then uh, there was opposition to it to basically the
to the fairness doctrine from from the outset, not just
the broadcasters who thought they didn't want any kind of
restriction on their speech, but also interestingly UM it represented
an loophole to combat advertising too, which I think the
FEC hadn't thought of, but they said, yeah, this actually

(29:34):
applies when it when it came up, there was UM
a ruling in nineteen sixty seven that found that cigarette
advertising um qualified as a um uh a presentation of
one viewpoint of a controversial subject. Basically, cigarette smoking is great,

(29:54):
Go go smoke some cigarettes. And so some consumer groups
uh petition the FCC and say, hey, we should be
able to give the opposing viewpoint, don't smoke cigarettes, it's
bad for you, and that SEC said you're absolutely right,
and advertiser was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, this
is a big deal. And now they jumped in to
back up the National Association of Broadcasters, which was opposed

(30:18):
to the fairness doctrine in general. Yeah, and it also
you know that kind of thing, if advertising counts, set
opens the doors, and it did for you know, like uh,
and we'll we'll get to this more specifically later. But
like if a power company wanted to do an ad
about their great new nuclear power plant that they were
going to build, like a liberal group can come forward
and say no, no, no, like that's not an ad. Um.

(30:41):
I know, they're paying for airspace, but that means we
need to talk about the ills of nuclear power, right right.
And I mean even if it wasn't at the opposing
group could say we get free air time to say
that this is the opposite of that. And so if
you're a broadcaster, especially if you're in a like a
successful market that you know fifteen thirty sixties second spot

(31:03):
is important, you don't want to give that away. But
it may also you may have like an interest in
whatever the other group is protesting. So just on that
in that respect as well, you don't really want to
air the opposing view. The problem with the fairness Doctor,
and if you're libertarian or conservative is that it said
you have to do that. You have to air this

(31:23):
opposing view. The SEC says, so that's right. So you
gotta think this is gonna end up in court at
some point, and it did quite quite a few times
over the years, not surprisingly uh and for about a
twenty to thirty year period US courts basically supported the
fcc UH in fulfilling this mandate. Um there were some

(31:45):
some real highlights in nineteen sixty nine. There are a
couple of big court rulings that affirmed this enforcement. One
was Red Lion Broadcasting Company Incorporated the f c C.
It's a little mouthie So this one was sort of
two cases in one UM. The Supreme Court was able
to guild two birds. One case was an FCC appeal

(32:08):
of a lower court ruling UH that said this, you know,
the personal attack and political editorial rules as two big
rules were unconstitutional. Uh. And the second was a broadcaster
appealing of a lower court ruling that said the fccs
application of those rules was constitutional. So I said, all right,
you guys, let's just combine this into one thing and

(32:29):
we'll hear the case. Uh. And in the latter one,
there was an investigative journalist named Fred J. Cook, and
he filed a complaint. And like we said, it was
case by case stuff. So these this complaint made it
all the way to the Supreme Court. Fred Cook filed
a complaint against Redline Broadcasting, who owned uh W c
g B, because they had a broadcast with Reverend Billy

(32:51):
James Hargus that claimed that Cook, who was an author
and wrote a very uh kind of salacious expose about
the FBI. I uh. And this this reverend said, you
know what, this author is worked for the communist and
he attacked JEdgar Hoover. And we it turns out they
didn't contact Cook to give him that equal chance to respond,

(33:12):
and they denied him his demand for that, and it
made it all the way to the Supreme Court, and
the Supreme Court said, you know what, Red Lion, you're wrong.
You gotta do this right. So and I since the
Supreme Court ruled that that Cook could have equal airtime,
this is like I think twelve years or nine years later,
and I could not find anywhere if he actually took

(33:33):
him up on it or not. But the whole thing
was just like a It was an ad hominum attack,
an attack on him on Cook because Cook had written
a book against Barry Goldwater, who was a presidential candidate
at the time, and the people who ran Red Lion
didn't like it. Um, so they attacked Cook. But he
so they in this ruling though, and this is the

(33:55):
whole point, not not that Cook got his time, it
was airtime, but that the Supreme Court ruled that the
sec applying this fairness doctrine was um good and fine
and constitutional, which is a big deal. They ruled that
the SEC could constitutionally um exercise this fairness doctrine, which

(34:18):
is that was just enormous. Yeah, it was a very
very big deal. Uh. The other big kind of landmark
case was that same year, UM the Office of Communication
of the United Church of Christ at all the FEC
another scintillating title. Uh. There was a US appeals court
who overturned the FEC's decision not to consider a petition

(34:42):
to revoke the license of Lamar Broadcasting w LBT. So
these citizens got together civil rights groups and they were like,
you know what, this station is awful. They are first
of all, they're not covering, um, the civil rights movement,
and they're flat out racist and segregationist, and so we're
gonna petition this. And the FEC denied the petition UH

(35:04):
in nineteen sixty four and said citizens don't have the
standing to file a petition like this, which is pretty
surprising because you know, the citizens are the ones that
FEC have always been like fighting for right. It was
a little um hanky hanky, it's the word that we
used to use. So the petitioners appealed in nineteen sixty six, Uh, yeah,

(35:25):
sixty six, the Court of Appeals for d C said,
you do have standing to petition the FCC to revoke
a license, because that's all about protecting the public interests,
which is what the FEC was supposed to be doing
in the first place, so get back to work. And finally,
in nineteen sixty seven, the FEC revisited that petition rejected

(35:46):
it again because they said, hey, this station is actually
kind of taken some steps since then, and we think
they're doing the right thing. Petitioners still weren't happy. They
appealed that in in nineteen sixty nine. Uh, the f
SEC actually revoked our broadcastings license. They did. As far
as as far as I could tell, Lamar Broadcasting was
the one and only company to lose their license under

(36:09):
the fairness doctrine. Right, um, they never got it back
and chuck a little cherry on top. Because Lamar Broadcasting
lost the license of w LBT in Jackson, Mississippi. It
was up for grabs and it was taken by a
majority black owned group that that took over the station.
At that point that nice. So um, things seem to

(36:33):
be going smoothly for the fairness doctrine. What could go wrong? Well,
we'll tell you what could go wrong after a break?
How about that? Okay, chuck. So one thing that I've

(37:05):
learned is it's not necessarily like the Supreme Court is um,
their decisions are are final forever. They kind of shift
and move over time over long enough periods of time.
And the fairness doctrine is a really good example of that,
because in the sixties the Supreme Court ruled pretty clearly
the FEC was constitutional. But UM by the end of

(37:27):
the seventies the Supreme Court started to side with broadcasters instead.
The winds of change kind of blew through there. And
there was one case in particular that the Supreme Court
heard in ninety nine that UM signaled a a real
change for UM the fairness doctrine in the sec applying it.
And it was a case that involved w j I

(37:50):
MTV and Lansing, Michigan, which is owned by a guy
named Harold Gross. Yeah. So uh. The complaint here was
that he or the station rather via Harold Harold Gross,
had abused their broadcasting power to the detriment of the public.
So what he did was he denied airtime to political
rivals UM in some cases. In other cases, he censored

(38:14):
coverage of local businesses if they didn't advertise with them. Yeah,
he was. He was accused of clipping, which is taking
like when a when a network delivers a show, it
has commercial breaks in it. He would have his editors
go through and add even more commercial breaks, which you're
not supposed to do. Um, that was a big one.
Didn't cover the Jimmy Hoffa disappearance because he didn't like
Jimmy Hoffa's politics, even though it was a national and

(38:37):
a local story. Yeah. So in ninety five hearing by
the FCC said, you know you've you violated the fairness rule.
We're taking your license, buddy. But he appealed it and
this time he won the appeal, And like you said,
this was a big shift in the way things were
being thought about as far as the fairness doctrine went. Um. Hey,

(38:58):
one one more thing about Harold Gross before we move
on this guy. Um. He was such a businessman that
when he started his TV station in n w j
I M, he was actually one of the first hundred
and eight license holders to broadcast on TV. But he
wasn't sure that TV was going to stick around, that
it was going to take off as a technology, so

(39:19):
he built the w j I M facilities so that
it could be converted into a motel if TV didn't
go anywhere. So the original date w j I m
UM TV station had a pool out back what is
it now? Do you know what is what? The pool?
I don't know. I looked up to see if there
was anything um recent about it, and I didn't find

(39:39):
any any new stuff. But I cleared I saw a
picture of the station, and there's definitely a pool out
back from back in the fifties. I guess. So I
wonder if you let anybody swimming it or not. Maybe
if you advertised, he would have let you. So this
was mid to late seventies, and then things really really

(40:01):
started changing in the nineteen eighties because, uh, that whole
thing about remember when he said putting a pin in
uh spectrum scarcity, that was no longer a problem. By
the mid nineteen eighties, there were more than ten thousand
radio stations, undred TV stations, about seventeen hundred newspapers, And

(40:22):
the whole sort of drumbeat was like, wait a minute,
there's not a problem here anymore with scarcity, we should
be able to do what we want. Because you told
newspapers from the very beginning that their free speech was
uh protected and they could do whatever they want. Why
are we any different? Yeah, that's that's a really big
point um that a lot of people pointed to over
the years, is why does this just apply to electronic media?

(40:46):
Like the print media literally has an editorial page where
they come out with positions on candidates and all this stuff.
Why doesn't it apply to them? And for years and
years and years, it was any smoke can basically go
get a newspaper. Printed radio is different because of that
spectrum scarcity. But yeah, as the satellite people came along,
and as cable came along, that just kind of went

(41:08):
out the door. So spectrum scarcity going away, and the
fact that the newspaper industry the print media was not
regulated anywhere near the same way really kind of removed
any remaining foundation for for the fairness doctrine to stand on. Yeah,
so in the fecuh kind of got their gears turning

(41:31):
and said, you know what, Um, we think this is Uh,
we want Congress to review this basically, UM, we're gonna
institute a public comment period even and uh, we think
we should abandon the personal attack rule and in this
case by case thing, right, and yeah, And they did
this for like two years, and while the FEC is

(41:53):
holding like these public hearings on it, Congress at the
same time was saying, well, we don't really want the
arness doctrine to go away, and not just the left.
There was a bipartisan supported bill that got passed in
Congress to codify the fairness doctrine, but it was um
vetoed by Reagan and so after that that was basically

(42:15):
it for the fairness doctrine. Yeah, the FCC voted, uh
unanimously to just get rid of it. They did, and
so they didn't actually get rid of it, they just
stopped enforcing it, or some parts of it. They kept
enforcing I think the personal attack and political editorial provisions
up until like two thousand, for like another thirteen years.

(42:38):
But the idea that you had to promote um opposing
viewpoints on your your television station or your radio station
that went away starting in and a lot of people
say that really changed the American media landscape big time. Yeah.

(43:00):
I mean, you know, it's depending on who you are.
I know, I'm trying to dance around this. Um. Depending
on who you are, you probably have a very strong
opinion about the Fairness Doctrine one way or the other,
or you may think it was a mixed thing. Um,
it was definitely a flawed policy. I think everyone agrees

(43:21):
that it wasn't perfect. Um, but the legacy is really complex. Um.
You know, getting rid of it basically opened the door
for what we have today, which is a degraded news standard, um,
minority viewpoints that aren't necessarily covered. Uh. And how polarized
we are because you know, people dug in and they said,

(43:42):
all right, I'm gonna start my super conservative radio stations,
and then people said, I'm going to start my super
conservative liberal uh website and and radio shows, and liberals
is gonna listen to theirs, and conservatives are gonna listen
to theirs and never between she'll meet right right. And
so especially if you have like each side promoting a

(44:06):
viewpoint or an agenda um to the detriment of the
other side, there's there's like the middle ground is lost,
which I mean some people, I know, some people aren't
very hip on centrism these days anyway, But I mean
you can keep a pretty decent sized society together when
you when you kind of follow a centrist access upward

(44:29):
and onward, you know. And I think that to me,
the fairness doctrine showed that. I mean, like, I don't
think it's a big surprise where I fall on whether
the fairness doctrine was a good idea or not. But
I just don't think it's um Like, I can see
saying all these people out here need good information and

(44:50):
it's probably not going to just get out there on
its own if if we the government don't step in
and say here's how we need to get good information out.
And I think the current DA landscape is just complete
proof positive of that that if you just don't, if
you just let it all go free for all, then
then you end up with what we have, that this

(45:10):
is what the market offers us, echo chambers, echo chambers,
polarization and a huge division in the country, um with
without anybody saying, well wait, wait, wait, yes, over here,
you guys are right. Over here, you guys are right
and and things are really messed up. But also what
about this other stuff? We kind of all agree on

(45:31):
this part and what about this part. Yeah, we have
a lot of common ground here. No one's talking about that,
and that used to be the role that the media
played before. Yeah. I mean, one thing we can say
is without the fairness doctrine, um, we may not have
gotten any of these majority viewpoints in the nineteen forties
and fifties and sixties, people might not have been as
well informed except maybe be a newspaper about the civil

(45:53):
rights movement, women's rights movement, Um, how bad smoking is,
about nuclear power plants, like, all of these things that
were sort of in the shadows were now now had
a guaranteed platform. Um. But like we mentioned earlier, because
they didn't really uh, they had to give these opposing viewpoints.
He also could have possibly borne the anti vax movement

(46:16):
and the and the climate denial movement and stuff like that.
So it was flawed, to be sure. Sure, Yeah, there's
from what I understand, like any Democrat to the right
of Ralph Nader, which is almost everybody, says, yes, fairness doctrine,
what a terrible idea, terrible idea. It was officially repealed

(46:37):
in two thousand and eleven, and if you'll think back,
that was under the Obama administration. So the Obama administration's
FCC was the one that officially took the fairness doctrine
off of the books, removed it. Yeah, but I mean
that was a purge that was just like there's a
bunch of rotten food in the fridge, and why has
no one thrown it out yet Yeah, but it was
also pretty symbolic, you know, it was it was a

(46:58):
symbolic act, whether they handed it or not. But but
the the idea that um that it was it was
removed by a democratic, um, lefty president's administration is it's
I don't know, it's saying something I think. Yeah, here's
where we are today. Though there was a pole, a
gallop pole. And just last year, in two thousand eighteen,

(47:19):
that's found Americans don't trust the news. Uh, they guessed, Uh,
let me see, si of what they here is biased,
forty percent is inaccurate, and thirty is misinformation. That's uh,
those numbers seem low to me. That's not a great

(47:40):
place to be in as a country though, No, it's
a terrible place. It's a scary place. Like how is
this country still together? You know? Um? But and and
the other thing is we're gonna get so much gough
because we didn't come out and just stay completely down
the middle. But I mean, I want to say, like
I understand where where people on the right are coming
from with this, Like ideologically this is censorship and um,

(48:04):
the the prohibition of the exercise of free speech, and
that's that is one of that is a a core
um founding value of conservativism and libertarianism. So like, I
can understand how you look at the fairness doctrine and
be like, this is government overreach and its worst and
its worst examples. You know. Yeah, but it's like it

(48:26):
wasn't It wasn't like state run radio, you know. No,
it wasn't like the government, the federal government propagandizing their agenda. Uh.
But yeah, it was saying like, hey, you can say
this viewpoint, you also have to show the other viewpoint
to me, that's almost impossible to argue with. Yeah, and
I think don't newspapers of of high standing still on

(48:49):
their editorial page kind of print the two opposing opinions
side by side. Yeah, that's what op ed stands for,
is opposite the editorial page. So the editorial page will
be the used papers opinion their editorial board, and then
on the literal opposite page is the basically the opposing
opinion of that. Yeah, it's just a high journalistic standard.

(49:11):
But this is the government saying this. Newspapers do this
on their own, I guess, just out of tradition. Um.
Whereas electronic media is a little more wild Westy than that.
That's right. So um here we are today. Uh, pretty
interesting times we live in and it's all because the
fairness doctrine went away. Anyway, thanks for listening to this

(49:33):
episode of stuff you should know. If you want to
know more about the fairness doctrine, just go outside see
how you like things. Uh. And since I said that,
it's time for listener mail, I'm gonna call this the
sound of our voices. I'm sorry, let me say this
the color of our voices. Oh yeah, I know what

(49:54):
my voice is. Color. This is good. In fact, yours
isn't even color. This is more of a field thing.
So hey, guys, listened to the episode on perfect pitch.
You mentioned that sinistats are often good candidates for having
perfect pitch. I fall into the category of being someone
who possesses both. I've been serious about my musicianships since
my earliest recollections in life, and that's when I began

(50:16):
involuntarily hearing all the individual musical notes and their own unique,
unchanging colors. For example, the sound of the note F
I should have brought in dude, I bought one of
those little uh what do you call it? Pitch pipe
I got I bought a pitch pipe. Why didn't you
bring it in? No? I should have brought it in
the one. No harmonica, I should have brought too. I'm
gonna buy you one. I would love it. Can you

(50:37):
have an engraved to just sure? Okay? Um? So the
sound of f for Alison has never not caused a
rush of the color orange to sweep over her from
head to foot. I also hear people's individual voices and colors.
What's unique about voices to me? They're incredibly textured in
and of themselves. You guys have voice colors and textures.

(51:02):
I love mine, read mine. Josh's voice anytime I hear
it sounds like Swede. If Swede Swede could make a
sound painted medium to dark brown with a tiny hint
of easter egg purple. That is a lovely combo, if
you ask me. Chuck's voice, on the other hand, has
zero fuzz to it at all. Chuck's voice is very,

(51:23):
very metallic, almost shimmery, like you're gazing upon a deep
blue green body of water and you can see straight
to the bottom. Nice. That's a nice voice right there.
These are both great voices. I'm very happy that, I
mean who knows what what could have come out of
this email? You know, your smells like a puke and
yours sounds like nails on a chalkboard. The end. Um,

(51:46):
I've come to find out that no two voice colors
are exactly the same, kind of like thumb prints and snowflakes.
A person's voice color does not morph and to something
else either if they suddenly start speaking in another language.
And it also has nothing to do with his or
her particular uh personality type. So they're not saying you're
smooth like swede on like as a person. Oh yes, clearly,
I think as a person. The point of the matter,

(52:10):
I delight in hearing both of your voices nearly every
days a tune into the show. It's become a staple
in my daily existence. Keep on being wonderful. That is
from Allison, who is at our Salt Lake City show.
She interacted with us from the crowd. That's great. Thank
you for interacting with us, Alison. We appreciate that it's
illegal at our shows. But I think I asked a question.

(52:31):
She answered it it's against the rules. That's what they say. Um, well,
thanks Alison. That was one of the more interesting emails
we've ever received. Frankly, uh, if you want to be
like Allison and go to one of our live shows,
you will never regret it for a single moment in
your entire life. Go to s Y s K Live
dot com and get tickets, especially Chicago. And if you

(52:52):
want to get in touch with us like Allison did too,
you can go onto our website Stuff you Should Know
dot com, follow our social links there, or you can
send us an email send it off to stuff podcast
at i heart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know
is a production of i Heeart Radio's How Stuff Works.
For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart

(53:14):
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows. H