[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 111 (Thursday, July 12, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9070-S9072]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           FAIRNESS DOCTRINE

  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, today, I want to reiterate something I 
talked about on Monday and maybe elaborate a little bit. I am one of 
the cosponsors of an amendment that several people will be discussing 
today, amendment No. 2020--it is primarily offered by my colleague, 
Senator Coleman, and myself and Senator DeMint and Senator Thune and, I 
believe, some others also--to prohibit the reimplementation of the 
Fairness Doctrine.
  Over the past few weeks, the Fairness Doctrine has received quite a 
bit of attention. The Democrat-controlled House of Representatives had 
a vote on June 28, just a couple weeks ago. The House voted 309 to 115 
to prohibit the

[[Page S9071]]

FCC from using funds to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine.
  Now, the Fairness Doctrine is a regulation the FCC developed to 
require FCC-licensed broadcasters to provide contrasting viewpoints on 
controversial issues. However, the FCC conducted a review of this 
regulation in 1985. I remember this well. This was back during the 
Reagan administration. They concluded--and I am quoting now the FCC:

       [W]e no longer believe that the Fairness Doctrine serves 
     the public interest.

  In explaining why the FCC reached this conclusion, the FCC wrote--I 
am quoting again further--

       [T]he interest of the public is fully served by the 
     multiplicity of voices in the marketplace today and that the 
     intrusion by government----

  The intrusion by government----

     into the content of programming unnecessarily restricts the 
     journalistic freedoms of broadcasters. The FCC's refusal to 
     enforce the Fairness Doctrine was later upheld in the DC 
     Circuit Court of Appeals.
       That is a little bit of the history that took place, and 
     there was not much controversy back in those days. Everybody 
     pretty much agreed this is something that should be driven by 
     the market, driven by the people, as opposed to being spoon-
     fed to the people by some governmental agency or anybody 
     else.

  So you might ask, why would a regulation that was found to be 
unnecessary over 20 years ago be controversial today? I can tell you 
why that is. It is because--and I happened to be in the middle of this 
when it happened--on June 22 I said something on a talk radio show that 
became quite controversial having to do with a statement I had made to 
a couple of the Senators of a more liberal standing in the Senate.
  They believed the content--which it is--of talk radio has a huge bias 
toward the conservative viewpoints. Now, I had made the statement--and 
I hate to sound rash when I do this, but I want to be accurate--I said: 
Well, you guys don't really understand. This is market driven. The 
market is driving it. There is no market out there for your liberal 
tripe.
  So it happened, coincidentally, that the day after I made that 
statement, the Center for American Progress came out with this report. 
It is called ``The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio.'' Now, 
I am not critical of the people who are behind this. It is the people 
from the Clinton White House. Clearly, it is John Podesta, Mark Lloyd, 
and many others who are in charge of this program. I am not sure. I 
have heard that the Center for American Progress is supposed to be 
maybe another viewpoint from the Heritage Foundation. You hear all 
kinds of things. But this is what is interesting in this report. First 
of all, they go through and document the fact that in talk radio 91 
percent of the content is conservative. I do not disagree with that. 
They say only 9 percent is progressive, or I would say liberal. I do 
not disagree with that.
  After they make their case, they try to state that there has to be a 
correction for it. I am going to read just a few excerpts from this 
report.
  They said:

       These findings--

  Now, the findings we are talking about are the 91 percent--

     may not be surprising given general impressions about the 
     format, but they are stark and raise serious questions about 
     whether the companies licensed to broadcast over the public 
     airwaves are serving the listening needs of all Americans.

  Now, that is really interesting, ``the listening needs of all 
Americans.'' What are the listening needs of all Americans? Who is 
going to determine that? Anyway, that is what they seem to be hanging 
their hat on. They said:

       Our conclusion is--

  I am reading from this report which is from the Center for American 
Progress. That is John Podesta and Mark Lloyd and the rest of that 
group.

       Our conclusion is that the gap between conservative and 
     progressive talk radio is the result of multistructural 
     problems in the U.S. regulatory system.

  It goes on to explain this. And then--I am kind of a slow learner. 
But after I figured out what they were talking about, they were talking 
about there are regulations that could be violated, or the intent of 
regulations could be in violation here. So they talk about some 
prescribed regulations to correct this problem.

  Now I move to page 11 of this report, and they come to this 
conclusion. They said:

       If commercial radio broadcasters are unwilling to abide by 
     these regulatory standards or the FCC is unable to 
     effectively regulate in the public interest, a spectrum use 
     fee should be levied on owners to directly support local, 
     regional, and national public broadcasting.

  You cannot get more socialistic than that in the comments. Now, the 
whole idea they are saying that not only then would talk show hosts who 
have a strong bias in one way or another lose their shows--let's say 
Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, any of the rest of them--but they also 
would have to be fined and that money would go to support public 
broadcasting. Now, that is what caused the interest after 20 years.
  When I say it is market driven, if you do not believe that, look at 
the effort by Al Franken and other liberals who tried to start Air 
America. Air America was designed to be on the liberal side. The 
problem was, nobody wanted to listen to it. So this is the problem that 
is out there, that people want to get away from what is market driven.
  We went through this same exercise, I might add, not too long ago, 
about a year ago, I think it was. We had various--let's see, Armed 
Forces Radio. I have it here somewhere. There are three different radio 
stations that reach our troops around the world--not just in Iraq and 
Afghanistan but around the world. So there was an effort to prescribe 
programming so it would be equally liberal and conservative. Then there 
was an uproar by our troops over there because they did not want that. 
So through their publications, the Army Times and some other 
publications, they determined what they wanted to listen to, and it was 
primarily conservative.
  So that is what has brought this thing up, and several people in the 
House and several people in the Senate--in this body--have said: We 
need to get the FCC to reinstitute the Fairness Doctrine.
  Now, the amendment that was passed in the House of Representatives by 
that huge margin I just mentioned was to prohibit the FCC from changing 
its viewpoint as far as the Fairness Doctrine is concerned.
  I have been outspoken on this issue for some time. For example, on 
the Defense authorization legislation we made quite an issue out of 
this. By the way, I might want to add, we won that battle. We ended up 
now so they are getting the programming they want, and it happens to 
be--this is quite a coincidence--it happens to be about the same--91 
percent versus 9 percent--that the people are demanding today in terms 
of the market. The same principle applies again.
  I have long said that talk radio is market driven. There simply is 
not much market for some of this other stuff that is out there. Some 
Senators have made it clear they intend to reinstate the Fairness 
Doctrine, but free speech is fundamental to what it means to be an 
American, and it must be protected. Reimposing some form of the 
Fairness Doctrine threatens first amendment rights. We all know that. 
But really what is most important is it gets to be very similar to some 
of these countries we criticize all the time where the government is 
trying to take over what comes through their airwaves.
  So I am pleased to join my many colleagues, including Senators 
Coleman, DeMint, and Thune, in supporting this amendment, and I urge 
the Senate to speak just as definitely against the Fairness Doctrine.
  I have a letter from the National Association of Broadcasters. In 
this letter--I will not read the whole thing--it winds up by saying:

       In the 20 years since elimination of the Fairness Doctrine, 
     there has been a veritable explosion in alternative media 
     outlets. Today, there are over 13,000 radio stations, more 
     than 1,700 TV stations, nine broadcast TV networks, hundreds 
     of cable and satellite channels, scores of mobile media 
     devices and an infinite number of Internet sites that cater 
     to every political persuasion and ideology. The Internet now 
     enables consumers to obtain, and communicate to the world, 
     virtually unlimited content.

  Of course, this is a strong endorsement of our position by the 
National Association of Broadcasters. Mr. President, I ask unanimous 
consent that this letter be printed in the Record.

[[Page S9072]]

  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                              National Association


                                              of Broadcasters,

                                    Washington, DC, July 11, 2007.
       Dear Senator: I write today to express our strong 
     opposition to a reinstatement of the so-called ``Fairness 
     Doctrine.''
       This discredited regulation, which stemmed from the 1940s 
     and was eliminated two decades ago, required television and 
     radio broadcasters to present contrasting points of view when 
     covering controversial issues of public importance. In the 
     Federal Communications Commission's 1985 Fairness Report, the 
     FCC asserted that the doctrine no longer produced its desired 
     effect and instead caused a ``chilling effect'' on news 
     coverage that may also be in violation of the First 
     Amendment.
       I write to you today urging you to oppose any attempt to 
     resurrect this long-discarded regulation. Free speech must be 
     just that--free from government influence, interference and 
     censorship.
       The so-called Fairness Doctrine would stifle the growth of 
     diverse views and, in effect, make free speech less free. 
     Newsgathers, media outlets and reporters will be less willing 
     to present ideas that might be controversial. In fact, FCC 
     officials found that the doctrine ``had the net effect of 
     reducing, rather than enhancing, the discussion of 
     controversial issues of public importance,'' and therefore 
     was in violation of constitutional principles. (``FCC Ends 
     Enforcement of Fairness Doctrine,'' Federal Communications 
     Commission News, Report No. MM-263, August 4, 1987.)
       In the 20 years since elimination of the Fairness Doctrine, 
     there has been a veritable explosion in alternative media 
     outlets. Today, there are over 13,000 radio stations, more 
     than 1,700 TV stations, nine broadcast TV networks, hundreds 
     of cable and satellite channels, scores of mobile media 
     devices and an infinite number of Internet sites that cater 
     to every political persuasion and ideology. The Internet now 
     enables consumers to obtain, and communicate to the world, 
     virtually unlimited content.
       Bringing back the Fairness Doctrine is unnecessary, 
     unwarranted, and unconstitutional.
           Sincerely,
                                                    David K. Rehr.

  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from South Carolina.
  Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed 
to speak for 15 minutes in morning business.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection?
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, if the Senator will amend his consent 
request so that both sides have equal additional time in morning 
business, there will be no objection.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Does the Senator modify his 
request?
  Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I modify my request that I have 15 minutes 
and my colleague have 15 minutes as well.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. No objection. I thank the Senator.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. DeMINT. Thank you, Mr. President. I thank my colleague for 
yielding.

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