The Democrats drive for the 'fairness doctrine'

Howard Fineman • E-mail

WASHINGTON - As the ten Republican presidential candidates debate this week on their favorite cable network – Fox News – Capitol Hill Democrats are planning a new drive for access elsewhere, on talk radio and local broadcast TV.

The goal? To level the media playing field in time for the 2008 election.

Talk radio has long been a crucial power base for conservatives and Republicans; local TV stations are not.

They shy away from public-affairs programming altogether, and yet they rake in ever-larger wads of cash on political advertising.

Democrats have two media-access goals.

One is to prod local broadcast television and radio stations to renew their atrophied commitment to producing and airing their own public affairs programming – shows that Democrats think would at least give them a chance to be heard. Some Democrats want to require stations to give free time for campaign debates, and even free campaign advertising as part of the stations’ “public service” licensing requirement.

The Democrats’ more ambitious (and longer-range) goal is to reinstate the “fairness doctrine.”

The fairness doctrine
For decades, the doctrine effectively kept partisan shows (the Rush Limbaughs of the world) off the airwaves by requiring radio and television stations to make comparable time available – free – for opposing views.

The doctrine was abandoned in 1987; Limbaugh hit the syndicated national airwaves the next year.

A soon-to-be-released study, commissioned by groups allied with the Democrats, finds that conservative dominance of the radio airwaves is growing.

According to researchers, more than 85 percent of talk-radio programming leans to the right – at least by the researchers’ definition.

Leaders of the industry, such as Limbaugh, contend they are merely acting to counter the dominance of what he calls the “drive by” mainstream media. But on radio, it’s hard to tell who is driving by whom – and conservatives are the mainstream.

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