The American Center for Law & Justice (ACLJ) is making legal game plans to combat the mislabeled "Fairness Doctrine" should it be revived.
For years, the Fairness Doctrine -- which was introduced in the U.S. in 1949 and then abolished by the FCC in 1987 -- forced radio and television stations to offer differing views on various subjects, which basically squelched the talk formats. ACLJ chief counsel Jay Sekulow claims that basically amounted to censorship. "I use the example that we didn't go on the air until 1988 -- after the Fairness Doctrine was removed," says Sekulow. "So the reality is that without getting some type of fair play in there keeping it as it is, which is basically open airwaves, it's censorship. You could call it a lot of things, but it's really censorship -- and it's mandatory government speech, and that's always dangerous." And it is definitely politically driven, argues the legal group. In a press release, ACLJ describes the recent effort to revive what it calls an "antiquated FCC rule" as "nothing more than a thinly-veiled attempt by some liberal members of Congress to silence the conservatives who oppose them." Sekulow says proponents of the doctrine do not seem to understand that conservative talk-radio is market-driven -- that is, people listen to it because they prefer it. In contrast, the attorney points out that Air America, a liberal network set up to offer an alternative to conservative talk-radio, has failed miserably. The ACLJ spokesman explains that "what they're going to try to do is what they call 'level the playing field' -- which is really to mandatorily knock down conservative talk-radio, which is their great fear right now, and [Christian radio] stations...that penetrate through the maze of what's going on in Washington and get people activated and engaged. That's the real issue here." Anticipating efforts to restore the Fairness Doctrine or some similar regulation, Sekulow has a team preparing to file suit. As he points out, those efforts could come through Congress or out of the Federal Communications Commission. "We must be prepared on multiple fronts," he states.
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