In 1987 Ronald Reagan saved AM radio by getting rid of the draconian "Fairness Doctrine", which itself was a legal device installed in the 30's to prevent a single candidate from buying the two radio stations and two newspapers in New York. Everyone knows that by the time Reagan dumped it, there were dozens of both AM And FM stations along with three big television networks and an explosion in channels with the popularity of cable.

The fact is music sounds better in FM, thus AM radio was dying out. Everyone was terrified of saying anything even the slightest bit controversial lest they get a ton of lawsuits based on the "Fairness Doctrine". Ending the doctrine opened up a whole new market: talk radio. Thus came the new problem, left wing talk was grossly unpopular and died out quickly while right wing talk took over. Thus in the year 2007 with a new sense of righteous indignation (and a lefty Congress backing them up) there is a new call to reinstall "The Fairness Doctrine".

But how "Fair" is it? Anyone who has ever worked in radio knows what a pain it is to keep things running. Especially on the sales side. Account Executives work long and hard trying to keep advertisers supporting the station. Often this means taking them to lunch, offering them special deals and many other tasks and errands. When it's all said and done, most people don't work an eight hour day: including the talent. Yes, the three hours or less they are on air is a fraction of their eight to twelve hour day. It's expensive to keep the power running, the equipment operating, pay all the board operators and so on.

But under the Fairness Doctrine a lot of stations would have to give 12 hours of programming away for free. Lefties could walk in to the studio glowing with entitlement and just take over without ever once being asked to pay a phone bill or pay for the set of keys they'd be given. Their job would start and end with time they are allotted.

As I said before, originally the Fairness Doctrine was focused on CANDIDATES running for office. But that's not what most people in 2007 mean when they talk about it. They want equal time FOR ISSUES. For example, Pro Life Issues would be "balanced" with a pro Death forum. Sounds harmless enough until you consider the following: CBS radio fired Don Imus for racial slurs, the company has a no racism policy. But under the Fairness Doctrine, the KKK could go in to CBS radio, demand equal time and have a case for it. Shouldn't Al Sharpton (in the name of fairness) be balanced out by people like Don Imus?

It's obvious that the people pushing for the Doctrine fail to understand it. Almost everyone I've talked to who are pro Doctrine bring up Fox News and how biased it is. Well I hate to tell you this, but the Fairness Doctrine *never* applied to the news. That means that "The O'Reilly Factor" could make a serious argument that the doctrine doesn't apply to them, since O'Reilly is a journalist. But even if the doctrine did apply to the news, there is still the question over whether the doctrine applies to cable. Those of you who think that Fox News would be history might very well have a rude awakening.

The argument that they simply want to open debate on things is a joke. Most people don't listen to the radio or watch network TV. Movies are a bigger market - but we're not going to tell big liberal Hollywood they need to balance out their crap. (Yeah well, they have free speech.) So radio and television station owners don't?

One could make the argument that radio and television use radio bands and those bands are public property, thus "the people" can decide what can be transmitted. If that's true, then I have to ask: Just about every single University in the United States is taking government grants - that's taxpayer money, i.e. "The people". So why don't the Universities have to provide balance? We all know the truth, because they're left wing organizations and lefties *never* have to follow their own rules. Thus the Universities can use the people's money to censor things via "speech codes".

But unlike TV and radio which I can turn off or ignore, the most insane liberal classes are often required for any type of degree. 

Closer to home still, the public school system. The propaganda film "An Inconvenient Truth" is becoming required viewing in a lot of Junior and Senior High schools. Shouldn't we balance it out with some films that give real science about global warming? Again not gonna happen.

In the end the Fairness Doctrine isn't going to solve any of the left's problems. Instead of giving all kinds of free air time to left wing losers, you'll simply see a rapid mass migration of talent to internet stations and private satellite stations far from the over reach of a government ignoring its own restrictions. But that's okay, I guess silence has a type of balance too it. I just feel sorry for the people liberals love most: the poor who can't afford cable or satellite radio watching all their avenues of open dialogue suddenly dry up. But that's okay, the poor can take the hit for the lefty team again.