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The Fairness Doctrine
THE FAIRNESS DOCTRINE....It's true, as Matt says, that the gang at The Corner has been kind of obsessed lately with the idea that Democrats plan to reimpose the Fairness Doctrine after Obama takes office. Bye bye Rush Limbaugh! I started noticing this chit chat a couple of weeks ago and did a bit of desultory googling to try to figure out what they were talking about, but I couldn't find much. It turns out that a few senators over the years have made occasional ritual calls to bring back the Fairness Doctrine, but the bulk of the conservative hyperventilating always eventually linked back to a single sentence in The American Spectator:
According to two members of the House Democrat Caucus, Reps. Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer have informed them that they will "aggressively pursue" reinstatement of the so-called Fairness Doctrine over the next six months.
So the Spectator, not exactly known for its deep sources with the Democratic Party, reports that "two members" of the House Democratic caucus claim that Pelosi and Hoyer are going to aggressively pursue reimposition of the Fairness Doctrine. Unfortunately for the conspiracy theorists, this was reported in May of 2007, and unless I missed some big news, Pelosi and Hoyer failed to make their big push.
So why are conservatives in such a tizzy about this? It's a mystery. There do appear to be a few members of Congress who think it's a shame we got rid of the Fairness Doctrine, but as near as I can tell, "few" equals four or five in the Senate and maybe a dozen in the House. There are probably more Republicans who believe in a return to the gold standard than there are Democrats who seriously want to reimpose the Fairness Doctrine.
So I'm still in the dark about why this has taken on such currency in conservative circles. Maybe someone can enlighten me. In the meantime, in other radio-related blogging news (nice segue, eh?), Nick Carr compares the blogosphere to the radio industry here:
When "the wireless" was introduced to America around 1900, it set off a surge in amateur broadcasting, as hundreds of thousands of people took to the airwaves. "On every night after dinner," wrote Francis Collins in the 1912 book Wireless Man, "the entire country becomes a vast whispering gallery."
....But it didn't last. Radio soon came to be dominated by a relatively small number of media companies, with the most popular amateur operators being hired on as radio personalities....That's not to say that the amateur radio operators didn't change the mainstream media. They did. And so, too, have bloggers. Allowing readers to post comments on stories has now, thanks to blogging, become commonplace throughout online publishing. But the once popular idea that blogs would prove to be an alternative to, or even a devastating attack on, corporate media has proven naive.
A couple of weeks ago I was on a panel at UC Irvine and said much the same thing, though I compared the professionalization of the blogosphere to modern talk radio, not 1920s amateur radio. Either way, though, I think Carr is essentially right. To a large (though not complete) extent, the blogosphere doesn't really oppose the MSM anymore, it is the MSM — and vice versa. This was probably inevitable, but it's still kind of a shame. Surely this means that there's now a market for yet another new medium, this time dedicated to criticizing the blogosphere?
.But it didn't last. Radio soon came to be dominated by a relatively small number of media companies, with the most popular amateur operators being hired on as radio personalities
Radio is an imperfect analogy. There are a finite number of frequencies (that is why the airwaves are considered public property, and is the reason you could argue for something like the Fairness Doctrine on radio and still satisfy the 1st Amendment). And it costs a lot of money to reach a sizeable audience.
This is not true of blogs. Getting noticed is hard, but once that happens, reaching your audience is relatively cheap. And it is also why attempts to apply the Fairness Doctrine to blogs would likely fail in court.
To a large (though not complete) extent, the blogosphere doesn't really oppose the MSM anymore, it is the MSM ? and vice versa
This may be true in the political blogosphere, but it is completely false in hyper-specialized areas such as the economic blogs or scientific blogs. Almost no mainstream press goes into the type of depth of analysis as those blogs.
.But it didn't last. Radio soon came to be dominated by a relatively small number of media companies, with the most popular amateur operators being hired on as radio personalities
Radio is an imperfect analogy. There are a finite number of frequencies (that is why the airwaves are considered public property, and is the reason you could argue for something like the Fairness Doctrine on radio and still satisfy the 1st Amendment). And it costs a lot of money to reach a sizeable audience.
This is not true of blogs. Getting noticed is hard, but once that happens, reaching your audience is relatively cheap. And it is also why attempts to apply the Fairness Doctrine to blogs would likely fail in court.
To a large (though not complete) extent, the blogosphere doesn't really oppose the MSM anymore, it is the MSM ? and vice versa
This may be true in the political blogosphere, but it is completely false in hyper-specialized areas such as the economic blogs or scientific blogs. Almost no mainstream press goes into the type of depth of analysis as those blogs.
I'm thinkin' sandwich boards.
Add in a webcam, and it's tailor-made for the 21st century: multimedia, real-world, man-on-the-street interaction (literally). Plus you can add body art or costumes -- very Gen Y.
So why are conservatives in such a tizzy about this? It's a mystery.
The more I pay attention to conservatives, the more I am convinced that this quote explains a lot:
"Liberalism is trust of the people tempered by prudence. Conservatism is
distrust of the people tempered by fear."
- William E. Gladstone (British Statesman)
It seems that some people have to have something to be afraid of and/or oppose. They'll go out of their way to find something to be afraid of. I would love additional insights into this.
The Fairness Doctrine was only second behind abortion as a GOTV issue on Christian radio stations. It was mentioned with great frequency and with much fear. They had listeners convinced that libearls wanted to remove Christian voices from the radio. Permanently.
Any discussion of the blogosphere as a mass medium must recognize that the term encompasses three, four or five distinct spheres.
One consists of media-affiliated bloggers -- Kevin, Andrew Sullivan, Mickey Kaus, Paul Krugman, et al.
Another consists of bloggers with academic, think-tank or other professional affiliations but who blog independently -- Dan Drezner, Ann Althouse, Matt Yglesias, Robert Reich, et al.
And another, vastly larger but less high-profile, group consists of fully independent bloggers.
This last group has been overweighted in self-indulgent ranters, but that's changing. Blogging is becoming the new medium for MSM refugees, especially in specialty or "community" fields such as the arts, lifestyle topics, religion and sports.
If you include YouTube and other video nets in the blogosphere, that adds another group of independent commenters and satirists to the mix.
...or even a devastating attack on, corporate media has proven naive.
Gee I don't know, as Greenwald is making serious in inroads in that direction, especially of late, particulary with da ugly WaPo and it's dire need to suddenly slant news in the Repug direction directly after Obama's election.
So who is going to shut Greenwald up? Huh? And particular, I must confess to being a bit suspicious, and thus, shutter to think of what TNR kind of talk Kevin might be insinuating here. There is a problem, and GOD knows, a problem that is very real. We do indeed have folks parading about as Democrats, who support corporate friendly doctrines that are not liberal in the least, and are never intended to be so.
A literal Fairness Doctrine as imagined by rightist opponents would be a stretch, and I don't think it's good to mull over hours of content to see how much it leans one way or another - and then demand correction. However, we can still require two things of permitted broadcasters:
1. Recourse for rebuttal by anyone actually mentioned on air in a demeaning way.
2. Require a certain amount of locally-produced content, to fight the power of big absentee conglomerates.
tyrannogenius
.But it didn't last. Radio soon came to be dominated by a relatively small number of media companies, with the most popular amateur operators being hired on as radio personalities
Radio is an imperfect analogy. There are a finite number of frequencies (that is why the airwaves are considered public property, and is the reason you could argue for something like the Fairness Doctrine on radio and still satisfy the 1st Amendment). And it costs a lot of money to reach a sizeable audience.
This is not true of blogs. Getting noticed is hard, but once that happens, reaching your audience is relatively cheap. And it is also why attempts to apply the Fairness Doctrine to blogs would likely fail in court.
To a large (though not complete) extent, the blogosphere doesn't really oppose the MSM anymore, it is the MSM and vice versa
This may be true in the political blogosphere, but it is completely false in hyper-specialized areas such as the economic blogs or scientific blogs. Almost no mainstream press goes into the type of depth of analysis as those blogs.
Kevin,
Conservatives are alarmed about the fairness doctrine because Nancy Pelosi favors its revival. (I leave out the link to avoid moderation -- but you can Google it.) It's as simple as that.
Perhaps if more moderates such as yourself were louder in speaking against it, conservatives would be more reassured. But that hasn't happened.
I think this was brought up to get the conservative base whipped up into a frenzy of victim-hood. The liberals are going to take Rush Limbaugh away! Quick! Give money to your local / state / federal GOP group!
I haven't seen anyone ask this question, and it seems an obvious one; if the media is so astonishingly liberal, why is the Right always freaking out whenever the Fairness Doctrine is brought up?
Not that I don't already know the answer (the Left looks at the dominance of right-wing voices and calls bias while the Right looks at the presence of any liberal voice and calls bias), but isn't this obvious contradiction to years of shouting LIBERAL MEDIA BIAS thrown back at any of these right-wing bloviators?
Kevin, surely you're just pretending to not get why conservatives are so up in arms about a return to any kind of "fairness doctorine?" it's because they believe that "fairness" is a stealth agenda for taking their voices off the air. They see the whole thing as a minority (liberals) grasping the reins of government and using it to regulate their constitutional and majoritarian rights in the private sphere. From their skewed perspective its an attack both on principle (privatized control of everything, including the airwaves, & freedom of speech) and a tactical assault on their political voice (Limbaugh, etc.) in the name of making things equal (something they're always suspicious about) for people who's views are too radical to have mass appeal without government support or who simply lack the initiative to become well known broadcasters on their own.
Really it's a tailor-made issue to appeal to their sense of victimhood and paranoia RE government regulation, and their inability to distinguish between the faux-populist broadcasters coming out of their radio and the giant, oligarchic media conglomerates that subsidize said voices.
So the money wing has a strategic political reason to oppose it, the evangelicals, ever paranoid about secular culture fear that "Christian" voices will be removed from the air, and the folks who think that a President should be someone you'd want to have a beer with react the same way they do to anything that smells of PC. Really, its one of the few issues left that puts all of these groups on the same page.
The question is why the notion of Life Without Rush is so terrifying to them. My own guess is that without Rush and Mikie and Sean and the rest of them, the insular, intellectually inbred world these people live in would die, and they'd be forced to live in the real world -- a world where not just W., but the ideas that made him, are a failure, a world where no, Obama isn't a Muslim socialist, a world where other ideas and world views aren't automatically, and -- most importantly -- reassuringly, derided. They live in a comforting womb of ignorance and disinformation, and don't want to come out. The Fairness Doctrine hits them in a primal way -- they'd rather be in the political minority the rest of their lives than be forced to discover they are in the minority.
I think Nerd has it right - the Republican Party these days is all about fear. Fear of gays, fear of guns being taken away, fear of people in turbans, fear of terrorists behind every tree.
Interestingly enough, fear is also a very powerful way of controlling people.
The Internet (with all the technologies that it encompasses including the USENET, World Wide Web, the "blogosphere", etc) is interactive, networked, peer-to-peer media and thus is fundamentally different from the broadcast media that is the domain of the so-called "mainstream media" (e.g. newspapers, radio, TV).
With the "mainstream" broadcast media, there are transmitters and receivers. With Internet media, every participant is a transceiver.
That's the basic difference, and everything else follows from that.
Fuck fairness.
Someday, may you be your own
Someday, may you be your own victim.
Can I point out something that seems to be getting lost here? Reimposing the Fairness Doctrine (which, btw, I think would be an excellent idea) would not remove Rush or any of the Christianist dreck from the air; it would simply require that if these types want to use the public airwaves to disseminate their political propaganda, they'd have to allow equal time for a reply.
This vast fear of being forced to actually deal with a dissenting point of view tells you most of what you need to know about the right wing.
So I'm still in the dark about why this has taken on such currency in conservative circles.
Other commenters have identified two important reasons why; 1) a culture of fear & victimization, and 2) fundraising that depends on exploiting #1.
A third is this: if they can whip themselves into a frenzy by suggesting that libruls want to re-institute the fairness doctrine, and then that doesn't happen, they will have demonstrated their own fearsome political potency (to themselves). They whupped them libruls reeeal gooood. The libruls wuz afraid of them! But they can't relax, 'cuz the libruls is still comin' to get 'em--you betcha!
So why are conservatives in such a tizzy about this? It's a mystery.
They know it's their jugular Kevin.
Blogospheres pale in comparison.
RedState? Freepers? LGF? Malkin?
Nuh uh.
24x7 Limbaugh, Savage, Hannity, and then all the local cranks that fill time on the stations that air Limbaugh.
Whipping people up in a froth at home, at work, while driving.
And what nerd said.
"I'm still in the dark about why this has taken on such currency in conservative circles. Maybe someone can enlighten me."
Because if the liberals had an advantage in a broadcast medium, the conservatives would pass some law to take that advantage away.
It's what they would do, so they figure it's what we will do.
Also, they like feeling threatened.
We should probably be happy about this. If conservatives want to waste their time worrying about something that will never pass, that's fine with me. It just leaves them less time to fight us on the real issues. That said, do conservatives have some weird disease that causes them exaggerate highly implausible threats and ignore the real ones?
I hate to rain on everyone's parade but the Fairness Doctrine, if revived, would only apply to broadcast stations. Bloggers wouldn't be touched at all by the regulations. It specifically deals with public licenses so unless you have to get a license from the FCC to blog, I don't think you have too much to worry about.
Now, why the right is freaking out is very straightforward, they would have to allow opposing voices on all of their broadcasts. The application is of the rules would require a station to give equal time to differing opinions. In effect shutting down the one sided conversation going on in talk radio for a couple of decades now. I think it would be a great idea to level the playing field for everyone concerned.
Just to clear something up, my question is not why the right would oppose reimposition of the Fairness Doctrine. It's pretty obvious why they'd do that.
Rather, my question is why they think this is a serious part of the Dem political agenda. There just doesn't seem to be any evidence that it has any serious support.
There just doesn't seem to be any evidence that it has any serious support.
Why are they telling people to buy guns? Why are they telling people Obama is a socialist? Or a Muslim? Or pals with terrorists?
In large part it's all to sell more HGH/C-Crane Radios/Gold/...
It's the politics of fear and hate and it's done to whip up ratings.
(Don't be shocked, shocked, shocked, us liberals do it too....)
Since when do the facts matter? They have a liberal bias.
Ever listen to a right wing talk radio show when someone comes up with a good argument against the host? The get cut off: silenced. Right wing talk radio is not about information or airing differing views. It's all about propaganda. Nothing else.
The very fact that the clown-shoes at The Corner are "in a tizzy" over the possibility of a Fairness Doctrine tells me that it's probably a good idea to reinstitute it. The Corner has a track record of being on the wrong side of the issues 99.44% of the time, and the other 0.56% of the time, they're right for the wrong reasons.
Kevin,
The conversation about the impact of bloggers on the msm is being too widely limited. There is an implicit assumption that we are only dealing with American media. If you look at bloggers in countries without free press you see the dynamic that people anticipated. In those countries, say malaysia, there is an antagonistic system where the bloggers fight the msm. In the us though the media was able to absorb the competition because they realize this is a more effective strategy than trying to quash and compete directly with blogs. the relationship is more symbiotic right now.
i dont think that the indy blogger will go the way of the indy radio guy of the 20's or even the ham operators. The indy radio operator just cant get a waide enough audience to make the effort worth while. Indy bloggers have no entry cost and the entire world as an audience.
Kevin, you ignorant slut :)
"A couple of weeks ago I was on a panel at UC Irvine and said much the same thing, though I compared the professionalization of the blogosphere to modern talk radio, not 1920s amateur radio."
I know you know better than this.
The radio spectrum is what we call "a scarce resource" in economics, and an unusually scarce one at that— which is why the government has traditionally felt it necessary to go the extra mile and actually require transmitters to be operated under a license.
The blogosphere is not at similarly constrained. There's plenty of "spectrum" to go around, and unlike with radio frequencies, if we start running out, it's trivial to just make more.
Anybody can start blogging. All it takes is enough money to be a share of the time on a personal computer required to maintain the blog.
Not just anybody can fire up a 100 kW AM radio transmitter in the middle of Los Angeles and expect to stay in operation for very long without a license.
I know you know this. So why do you keep pretending not to know it?
Right, s9. And also, Americans spend a lot of their time in their automobiles. What media do you access while driving?
TV? Internet newssites? The blogosphere?
D'oh.
"Just to clear something up, my question is not why the right would oppose reimposition of the Fairness Doctrine."
Excuse me pls, Kevin, but if that was not the question, then the whole "Nick Carr" part of your posting was totally pointless. Right?
I think that their response is more about keeping everyone on the reservation and less about whether it's actually something that liberal politicians would try to do.
I don't think the right is totally loony about this issue. In their mind reimposition of a gag rule for Limbaugh would be of the same cloth as the card check sop to labor or "sensible" gun control... the idea probably got further support from Obama's people openly organizing a heckler's veto of Stanley Kurtz' radio appearances during the campaign, and the latest Stasi-like culling of Joe the Plumber's government files, with the dirt spread by Keith Olbermann.
It might be fun watching Keith Olbermann have to comply with a new Fairness Doctrine.
Just the thought makes me smile.
Kevin wrote:
Rather, my question is why they think this is a serious part of the Dem political agenda. There just doesn't seem to be any evidence that it has any serious support.
The reason they bring it up is that they don't have something else relevant to whip up fear with.
Lawyers have a saying: "When the law is on your side, argue the law; if the facts are on your side, argue the facts; if neither is on your side bedazzle them with bs."
While both liberals and conservatives will bs it seems that conservatives do it more. I can't stand listening to conservative radio shows because they never stick to facts. Instead they stray all over the place appearing to prove their point but not using anything resembling reality. Too often they simply make stuff up to prove that they are right.
To use Newt Gingrich as an example, a while back he was on a panel discussion about the constitution and he was talking about the role of the president, and the first thing he said made perfect sense, the second thing he said was good but a little off, the third thing just went completely over the cliff.
Since then I've noticed a similar pattern with other conservatives: start with something somewhat plausible, then take it further, and eventually end up in bizarre territory that has nothing to do with reality.
What are the voices of fear going to talk about right now? It certainly isn't how conservatives will solve healthcare, or improve the economy, or end the war, or anything else that people care about, because they don't have a *&^%$@# clue how to do any of those. The solution is to find something to complain about, and the less tangible the better, because otherwise even an idiot may figure out that they are just bedazzling them with bs.
What is this pooh-poohing the impact of bloggers (and new media generally) as an assault on the media establishment? We stand here above the fresh and bloody scalp of the first major daily to fall from print: the Christian Science Monitor.
One cannot call for a return of the "Fairness Doctrine" and reasonably claim to favor free speech.
As usual, Brian is so certain of himself and so very, very wrong.
Very good arguments can be made both for and against the Fairness Doctrine on the basis of free speech. The fairness doctrine can be seen as interfering with the rights of the station owner, but it's intent is to keep that station owner from blocking out entire points of view.
Without the Fairness Doctrine and with increasing media consolidation of media, many media markets are exposed to a much narrower range of views than used to be the case. The most valid argument against the doctrine at the time was that it discouraged stations from carrying any controversial or overtly political content for fear of having to provide time for a response.
The main reasons I don't expect the Democrats to try to re-enact the Fairness Doctrine are that first, it is too late to do so without completely destroying the business models Fox News and Clear Channel and second, that the increasing availability of cable TV, satellite TV and satellite radio and the internet make broadcast spectrums less relevant. Digital broadcasting may also increase the availability of alternative programming.
Oops, mispelled my handle for the last comment.
tanstaafl:
Very good arguments can be made both for and against the Fairness Doctrine on the basis of free speech.
So what are the free speech arguments in favor of the "Fairness Doctrine?"
i'm laughing at everett who apparently didn't read the post past the first sentence.
the blogosphere, as i see it, has been civilized. as kevin and others have noted, there are multiple layers to it, including lots of "just regular folks with something to say." it's becoming a virtual reflection of "real life."
many blogs that i have been reading since 2004 and earlier have moved up the food chain. this is a good thing. there are many more left and progressive voices that have been and are being "normalized" in the marketplace of ideas. sadly, the quality of comment threads tends to decline as commercial viability increases, but that's a bug that has some benefit -- it pushes me to find "smaller" conversations where discourse is possible, thereby having the effect of widening the conversation.
the great thing about this virtual world is that there is room for so much. everyone can have a seat at the table.
could that actually be what made the obama win possible? that people have been able to have a sustained, and often deep, conversation about what we want, what's happened and what's happening?
visualization has a significant impact on achievement.
this post-election period is a shock to my system as i had been sucking down hours of information every day for months now. i feel like a junkie whose juice has been turned off.
now that the election is over i have time for new hobbies. like cooking for my friends who worked so hard during the election. there are a whole bunch of blogs about food and cooking that are delightful and inspiring, and i look forward to learning some new tricks in the kitchen.
tanstaafl:
Very good arguments can be made both for and against the Fairness Doctrine on the basis of free speech.
So what are the free speech arguments in favor of the "Fairness Doctrine?"
Posted by: Brian on 11/09/08 at 8:49 AM
From my previous post:
The fairness doctrine can be seen as interfering with the rights of the station owner, but it's intent is to keep that station owner from blocking out entire points of view.
Without the Fairness Doctrine and with increasing media consolidation of media, many media markets are exposed to a much narrower range of views than used to be the case.
Since that is apparently not clear enough for you, I'll spell it out.
1) There are only so many channels available for radio, and especially TV. Both limited bandwidth and very high upfront costs make starting new stations difficult. In particular, it is impractical to do so solely to provide an alternative viewpoint on political issues.
2) Station owners nad programming producers frequently have political biases of their own which can show up (and have) in their choice of programming.
3) This can and has created situations in which one political viewpoint is excluded from the conversation in certain media markets. The dominance of radio and TV as a source of information has been sufficient at times for this to create a serious restriction in free speach rights for anyone that disagreed with the media ownership in those markets.
4) Since the airwaves are condsidered a public resource and their use requires a license issued by the FCC, it is appropriate to require stations to present all points of view in order to overcome the problems caused by points 1), 2) and 3).
As I acknowledged, there are also valid free speech arguments against the Fairness Doctrine.
However, your suggestion that it is impossible to reasonably support both the Fairness Doctrine and free speech is to put it bluntly, bullshit.
I really wish that being liberal meant pro-everything and conservative pro-against everything as far as Government Involvement was concerned-The only thing that worries me more is the Supreme Court's love for Landmark Decisions that gets there names in the record Book and destroys the very values and beliefs that made America strong. Separation of God from Country will result in destruction of Country and if that is not evident by now, you are truly blinded by your own corruption!
tanstaafl,
To your first three points, no one's free speech is violated because he might not broadcast on tv or radio. No one is guaranteed any particular platform for his views. Beyond that, other means of communication exist to which one avail himself.
As for the fourth, the notion that the airwaves belong to the public is a nonsensical construct of people who wanted to unreasonably restrict free speech. Every argument for "public airwaves" can be made for real estate. No one (well almost no one and one who is serious) would make the same arguments for government control of land.
I must say that I don't understand why anyone would think radio and tv should not have all the same First Amendment rights as newspapers (unless you are hell of strict constructionist.)
One cannot call for a return of the "Fairness Doctrine" and reasonably claim to favor free speech.
To restate what tanstaafl said, station owners own the station. They do not own the airwaves. You and I own the airwaves and the airwaves are still a limited resource -- just look at what all the various interests are fighting about with the FCC right now -- how to use the airwaves, and how to reclaim the airwaves.
In the case of a limited public resource, it's not unreasonable to look for some regulation over the use of that resource. We do that to maximize the public use and public value.
In fact, there (used to be?) a conservative theory known as wise-use that advocated this very thing as long as it was for forests and pasture land.
I suspect the Cornerites don't feel they need evidence for the Plot To Restore the Fairness Doctrine. George Will and Charles Krauthammer have already testified to the plot, and (in the minds of Cornerites, at least) they supposedly know what they're talking about.
But if you're wondering where this bit of unadulterated BS comes from, there's your answer: George Will, with an assist from Charles Krauthammer.
The Cornerites didn't dream this one up. George Will's responsible for the invention of this particular BS story.
Since this site seems to refuse posts with hyperlinks in them (what's with that, anyway?), check out Will's columns of August 17 and September 18. In both columns, Will says that reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine would be a consequence of a Dem win.
On October 31, he gets an assist from Charles Krauthammer, who says the same thing that day.
What's impressive is that Will can make up stuff like this out of whole cloth, and nobody will call him on it. His column is everywhere, he's a regular on the Sunday talking-head circuit, and he's one of the leading lights of inside-the-Beltway 'thinking.'
I've been reading his column regularly for the past few months as part of my blogging, and I've got no clue why anyone pays the least bit of attention to him. He's like a tenured professor that hasn't had a new thought in 20 years, but who everyone still sucks up to for some reason.
Brian: if there are two sides to an arguement and one side has the ability to deliver their point of view to 90% of the public and the other side is limited by lack of resources to reaching no more than 10% of the public, then the first side has a significant advantage that can't be overcome by the other no matter what the relative merits of their arguments are.
Given that there is a very real necessity for the government to regulate the use of the broadcast spectrum to avoid the chaos of competing stations trying to use the same frequencies and to drown out or 'jam' each other, it is not unreasonable for the government to consider how to promote a diversity of viewpoints in those broadcasts.
Furthermore, the fairness doctrine did not directly limit what the broadcasters could put on the air in any way whatsoever, it merely required them to provide time for an opposing viewpoint to be heard.
As I said before, the best argument against the fairness doctrine when it was in effect was that it had the actual effect of discouraging all controversial or political content. The argument was that providing time for a response could be expensive and it could be difficult to predict when someone would demand equal access and when the FCC would grant it and therefore it was easier to just avoid the possibility.
I am not convinced by this argument and think overall that it was a mistake to abandon the fairness doctrine. I also think re-imposing it now is impractical and unnecessary due to changes in the broadcast industry and its reduced importance as a source of information.
However, you are the one that is trying to close off one entire side of the argument by saying, incorrectly, that it is impossible to support both the fairness doctrine and free speech.
I can't claim any expertise in the tactical or strategic thinking of movement conservatism, but I do think the Fairness Doctrine is a huge red herring that prevents clear thinking about what a progressive media or communication policy for the 21st century might look like.
It's a gross over-simplification to say, as Nick Carr does, that commercial radio 'just happened' to supersede its non-commercial predecessors. Nor it is accurate to point to today's ham radio world as any indicator of what 'amateur radio' was like in the years between 1900 and 1927. There were plenty of Individual operators, but there were also countless stations run by educational institutions, farm bureaus, churches, labor unions, and community and ethnic groups of all kinds.
These stations just didn't die off because commercial radio had a business model that made its pioneers wealthy . . . commercial radio became a gold mine only after commercial broadcasters and the earliest radio regulators relentless swept non-commercial broadcasters off the airwaves, with restrictions on their operating hours, power limits, and frequent changes to their frequency assignments.
Blogging and the Internet have a strikingly different technology model, and it will be much more difficult for mainstream corporate media to use the same tactics to wipe out non-commercial competition on the Internet . . . but that hasn't stopped Comcast, AT&T, Hollywood, and the music industry from trying to shape the Internet and related regulatory issues (copyright, peer-to-peer, bandwidth caps etc) in their favor.
We need to be vigilant and we need to lobby hard for the widest possible broadband deployment and the widest possible use of unlicensed spectrum to keep the communication revolution moving forward in a distributed, democratic direction.