Did Ronald Reagan Pave the Way for Fox News? ht
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Posted On: 01/13/2019 1:02:39 PM
Re: wowhappens28 #17644
Did Ronald Reagan Pave the Way for Fox News?
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ronald-reag...-doctrine/
By 1987, amid growing criticism, Reagan’s FCC came to believe the Fairness Doctrine should be abandoned, because it believed that “the doctrine chilled the speech of broadcasters and inhibited free and open debate on the public airwaves,” as the Congressional Research Service put it.
In an effort to pre-empt such a repeal, Democratic Senator Fritz Hollings introduced the Fairness in Broadcasting Act in March 1987, which would have fully enshrined the Fairness Doctrine in law. The Senate was split 55-45 in favor of the Democrats at the time, and the bill passed the Senate by 59-31. A similar bill was passed by 302 votes to 102 in the Democrat-controlled House in June, but President Reagan vetoed it.
The Supreme Court has recognized that regulations similar to the Fairness Doctrine, when applied to the print media, are not constitutional. If regulations similar to the Fairness Doctrine could not withstand strict scrutiny when applied to the print media, it appears unlikely that similar regulations would withstand such scrutiny when applied to cable or satellite providers.
So even if the Fairness Doctrine had persisted until the era of Fox News, the FCC would, in all likelihood, have been restricted to regulating the content of public broadcasters, leaving Fox News to its own devices, like hundreds of other cable and satellite channels.
Hmm 1987
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ronald-reag...-doctrine/
By 1987, amid growing criticism, Reagan’s FCC came to believe the Fairness Doctrine should be abandoned, because it believed that “the doctrine chilled the speech of broadcasters and inhibited free and open debate on the public airwaves,” as the Congressional Research Service put it.
In an effort to pre-empt such a repeal, Democratic Senator Fritz Hollings introduced the Fairness in Broadcasting Act in March 1987, which would have fully enshrined the Fairness Doctrine in law. The Senate was split 55-45 in favor of the Democrats at the time, and the bill passed the Senate by 59-31. A similar bill was passed by 302 votes to 102 in the Democrat-controlled House in June, but President Reagan vetoed it.
The Supreme Court has recognized that regulations similar to the Fairness Doctrine, when applied to the print media, are not constitutional. If regulations similar to the Fairness Doctrine could not withstand strict scrutiny when applied to the print media, it appears unlikely that similar regulations would withstand such scrutiny when applied to cable or satellite providers.
So even if the Fairness Doctrine had persisted until the era of Fox News, the FCC would, in all likelihood, have been restricted to regulating the content of public broadcasters, leaving Fox News to its own devices, like hundreds of other cable and satellite channels.
Hmm 1987
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