Fairness Doctrine (Historical Development And Update)

AuthorAmy L. Toro
Pages968-969

Page 968

From its establishment in 1934 the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) discouraged broadcast station owners from airing biased presentations of controversial issues. In 1939 the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) echoed the FCC's fair treatment approach. Responding at least in part to Father Charles Coughlin's controversial anti-Semitic broadcasts, NAB adopted a voluntary code that discouraged stations from editorializing and encouraged balanced treatment of controversial issues. In 1940 the FCC applied these principles in its Mayflower decision, which banned on-air editorializing by station owners involved in BROADCASTING. Although the FCC's no-editorializing policy was never challenged in the courts, scholars have long criticized it as a clear violation of broadcasters' FIRST AMENDMENT rights.

In 1946 the FCC promulgated "The Blue Book," in which it suggested that broadcasters had an affirmative duty to cover subjects of a controversial nature. At this point NAB lobbied the FCC to overturn its Mayflower decision and to recognize a broadcasters' right to editorialize. In 1949 the FCC agreed to permit editorializing,

Page 969

but continued its commitment to fair treatment of controversial issues in its "Report on Editorializing," which included what came to be known as the "fairness doctrine." The doctrine required broadcasters to cover controversial issues of public importance and provide a reasonable opportunity for the presentation of opposing viewpoints on these issues. Broadcasters preferred blanket permission to editorialize and complained about the fairness doctrine on FREEDOM OF SPEECH grounds. However, the FCC enforced fairness doctrine violations only at license renewal time and even then was extremely reluctant to deny renewal on that basis. The lack of official enforcement of the doctrine left it constitutionally unchallenged until the 1960s.

In the 1960s the FCC increased its enforcement of the fairness doctrine, and it developed further the principle that fairness required broadcasters to offer response time to persons personally attacked by commentators. When the FCC ordered a station to provide response time for such an attack, the station brought a First Amendment challenge in RED LION BROADCASTING CO. , INC. V. FCC (1969). The Supreme Court upheld the fairness doctrine as justified by the governmental interest in allocating and regulating the broadcast spectrum as a scarce...

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