The Fairness Doctrine

Newt Gingrich made the absurd argument this morning on This Week With George Stephanapoulis that the congressional Democrats would try to curb Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity's free speech rights. What an absurd canard, equal in its dishonesty as the notion that Barack Obama's health plan is nationalized health care. Both arguments are ridiculous on their face.

The Fairness Doctrine was a policy of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that required the holders of broadcast licenses both to present controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a manner that was (in the FCC's view) honest, equitable, and balanced (Wikipedia.org). The Fairness Doctrine, which many people again support, required that contrasting viewpoints be presented an idea, in a time of broadcast media monopolization by one point of view, that is again manifest.