Radio Ink publicizes the latest effort of sky-is-falling lawmakers to make people believe the Fairness Doctrine is returning...
Is The FCC Looking To Backdoor The Fairness Doctrine? That's what some lawmakers seem to be thinking in a letter written to new FCC Chairman Thomas Wheeler from the Committee on Energy and Commerce. The opening paragraph highlights the importance of the commission's removal of the Fairness Doctrine, calling it an intrusion into free speech. That's followed up by a call to stop "this most recent attempt to engage the FCC as the news police." What has lawmakers all twisted up is the commission's November Public Notice announcing a field test for the research design of a multi-market study of critical information needs.
I'll say it again, and I've said it a million times before. The Fairness Doctrine is dead. I wish it wasn't, but it's dead. Once that genie came out of the bottle there is no possible way to put it back in. You're either bringing it up again because you are A) paranoid or B) inciting the public to believe Conservatives are somehow being targeted. Under what circumstances do you believe Congress is going to allow that? Or the Supreme Court?
It's nonsense.
Just stop it.
