Bring Back The “Fairness” Doctrine

That’s what Bill Clinton says he wants:

“With regard to media consolidation, the rules were relaxed too much,” Clinton said during his Million Dollar Hamptons fundraising marathon this last weekend.

“Anti-trust law should apply. I think we shouldn’t have abandoned the fairness law; if a media outlet were pushing a particular political point of view…then you had a right to demand the opposite point of view. The airwaves belong to the public, not to anybody, particularly not to Fox News.

Only one problem, Bill. Fox News doesn’t use the airwaves. It’s a cable/satellite channel. And the “scarcity” argument for regulating content never made that much sense, even with over-the-air radio and television. It was alway theoretical, and never really mattered in practice, particularly with the advent of UHF. After all, any metro, and most rural areas have multiple television and radio stations. How many major newspapers do they have? Guess it must be a newsprint scarcity.

Also, I guess he didn’t get the memo that the latest Dem talking point is that they don’t want to bring back the Fairness Doctrine–they just want more “responsibility” on the part of broadcasters. And of course, the notion of “balance” is absurd, and only makes sense to those simplistically stuck in a one-dimensional political world view, with only “left” and “right.” Most issues have more than two sides to them, on different axes.