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is the most important. The principle of "balanced coverage" on issues of public importance is harder to implement and enforce in a meaningful way. I remember the midnight broadcasts of dissenting opinions in the 1960s and 1970s that were so boring, everybody turned them off--if they were up that late watching old movies. The public service component of "balanced coverage," however, is extremely important, as a requirement for use of the pubic airwaves (for instance, the broadcast of important public events, national or local). Also, the notion of "balanced coverage"--even if it was ineffectively implemented--was deeply influential throughout the media, encouraging more objective journalism even in print newspapers and news magazines.
But the anti-monopoly principle is really the main thrust of the Doctrine. No one--and certainly not a handful of rightwing billionaires--should have a monopoly on news and opinion, in any region, or in the nation as a whole. Monopolies over broadcast and print news, often combined in entertainment conglomerates (and in NBC's case, with war profiteering businesses), are extremely damaging to freedom of speech, one of two core principles of democracy--the other being transparent vote counting (which we have also lost). The internet is our only hope and refuge as to free speech. That is a positive development. But as to the rightwing tripe that spews into our homes via TV, and over the radio--free speech, "balanced coverage" and all of the essential values of objective journalism have been lost, and this horror has bled over into newsprint as well.
Some new version of the Fairness Doctrine is absolutely needed. I would structure the proposal this way:
1. Bust up all news/entertainment monopolies. Re-create competition, by encouraging small, creative, new businesses to take over the broken up parts of these monopolies, on a small scale.
2. Ban all private money from political campaigns (or alternatively, ban all political ads on TV/radio). And: require licensees of the public airwaves to provide 4 to 6 weeks of 24 hour, or prime time, coverage, prior to every election, with all broadcasting devoted to public debate and candidate access to the voters.
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Re #1: This would include conglomerates that control book publication, newspapers and news magazines, movies, TV/Radio and/or cable, as well as other businesses. Bust out the book publishers, say, from Time-Warner, and, if there are several book publishers, bust them apart from each other. They must become small, single enterprises, with no relation to the parent corporation. The same with other elements of news/entertainment monopolies or conglomerates. A TV broadcaster cannot own a newspaper. A newspaper owner can only own one newspaper (and no other news/entertainment businesses). Thus, the profits from advertising are spread around to millions of new, small businesses, which compete with each other to be the best--and will serve their communities far, far better than monopolies and conglomerates have.
Re #2: The notion of "balanced coverage" is a two-part problem. The first part is the humongous, dreadful, putrid, democracy-killing influence of "organized money" (as FDR put it) on the parameters of public debate, and on who can run for office. Today, you have to have a million dollars in hand, to even think about running for Congress. That is DEATH to democracy. Its driver is the enormous cost of TV/radio political ads. And you can solve this problem at the same time that you solve the problem of wall-to-wall corpo/fascist bullshit on TV/radio. You ban political ads (or all private money), and require that all public airwaves be devoted to public debate in short campaigns, prior to elections, as a condition of the license. The applicants for such licenses will know that they cannot count on any profits during those periods--and they either accept that condition or they don't get the license, and it goes to a more public spirited business. We are long past due for this in the United States. Are we going to take our political life seriously, or not?
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