PenceBlog: <i>Citizen Link</i> on the Fairness Doctrine - U.S. Congressman Mike Pence : 6th District Of Indiana

Citizen Link has a great piece on the Fairness Doctrine entitled "Radio Revolutionaries." Below are excerpts. Click here for the full story.

In Congress, the talk-radio community may have found an ideal champion in Mike Pence, the fourth-term representative from Indiana who was a statewide talk-show host in the ’90s. In June, more than 300 House members voted for the Pence Amendment, which prevented the FCC from any re-institution of the Fairness Doctrine for one year. And then Pence introduced the Broadcaster Freedom Act, which would keep the FCC from re-establishing the doctrine altogether.
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An effort has been building for more than a year among liberals in Congress, in the news media, in Beltway think tanks and on the Internet seeking to restore the old strictures no matter who wins the White House next year. Among the most vigorous supporters is House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who reportedly told the Democratic Caucus that she would “aggressively pursue” the doctrine’s renewal. “The chances are a lot better than people think,” said Thomas McClusky, vice president of government affairs for the Family Research Council, “of a return of the Fairness Doctrine.”

It was the end of the Fairness Doctrine late in Ronald Reagan’s presidency that cleared the way for the explosive growth of entertaining and vibrant political talk radio as well as for the huge expansion of evangelical and Catholic radio over the last 20 years.
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Talk and Christian radio’s record of economic success and accumulated political, cultural and social influence, of course, are the main reasons the Fairness Doctrine has reared its ugly head again.

Conservative critics scoff that it’s about the only gambit remaining for leftist interests whose own efforts to build a talk-radio following, through entities such as the Air America network, have failed miserably. Unable to beat the Right at the talk-radio game, they suggest, liberals simply want to cancel the contest.

And it provokes them that the Left wants to use the Fairness Doctrine to take over conservatives’ little backyard when liberals already own the rest of the neighborhood. “The Left has been a dismal failure in talk radio, and the Right has been a smashing success, so now the Left wants to take that away,” said Gregory Koukl, host, founder and president of Stand to Reason, a syndicated Christian-talk show based in southern California.

posted by Pence Press Office # 7:23 AM