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Originally Posted by reddog1951
Not sure it's crazy, since a lot of law (and I'm not a lawyer) is based on precedent and new platforms are sometimes not a good fit. We all know that certain newspapers and other media have certain "leanings". Hence the "equal time" ruling by the FCC. I'll admit to being a "shit-stirrer", so expand this argument out...should Fox then be required to give equal time to Kamala Harris?
Freedom of the press is a double edged sword. I think the original intent was freedom from a government press and licensure for contradictory views....if you have a press.
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Fox reports on everything Kamala Harris says and does. She would be laughed out of court trying to make the case that Fox News censors her but AGAIN, how would you know since you obviously have no idea what Fox is reporting.
https://www.poynter.org/ethics-trust...-in-a-word-no/
Do the networks have to give equal time? In a word, no.
First, the idea of “equal time” is born out of the regulation that has to do with political advertising. Simply put, if a broadcast station sells ad time or offers free time to a candidate for an office, it has to offer similar access to other qualified candidates. The equal time rule still exists today, but the Fairness Doctrine does not.
The Federal Communications Commission abolished The Fairness Doctrine in 1987. The regulation stretched back to the Radio Act of 1927 that mandated broadcast license holder “serve the public interest.” In 1949, The FCC introduced the fairness doctrine regulation just as the FCC was issuing broadcast licenses, and when three TV networks (NBC, ABC and CBS) ruled the television airwaves. The government said it wanted to promote a “basic standard of fairness” for what was being broadcast. Congress worried that without regulation, the networks could set their own agenda and no other voices would be heard. Congress kept the concept of the Fairness Doctrine in the 1959 Communications Act.
When I started in broadcasting in the 1970s, the FCC considered, in fact, said, the Fairness Doctrine was the “single most important requirement of operation in the public interest — the sine qua non for grant of a renewal of license.” Stations would keep track of the number of minutes and seconds they dedicated to controversial issues to be sure they could document that they had given equal time to opposing voices. It was ingrained in broadcast journalists like me to “get the other side” of the story, even if the other side was a knucklehead. Today we might call it “false balance,” but it was the law then.
Interesting article, I won't both to post it all.
