Consider the difference one more conservative vote on the U.S. Supreme Court has made in matters that Christians and conservatives care deeply about, such as the court’s upholding of the ban on partial-birth abortion.
On the other hand, consider the harm to Christian and conservative free speech if a single vote shifts on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). If just one more of the five commissioners succumbs to liberals’ complaints about talk radio’s conservative tilt, the reconfigured 3-to-2 majority could immediately reinstate the Fairness Doctrine of two decades ago — which required a “balanced” presentation of ideological and political views on local radio and TV stations. That could end talk and Christian radio as we know it.
“It would be very dangerous because it would greatly damage free speech, not to mention the future of terrestrial radio as a business,” said Michael Harrison, publisher and editor of Talkers magazine, the chronicler of the talk-radio business. “It would be disastrous.”
An effort has been building for more than a year among liberals in Congress, in the news media, in Beltway think tanks and on the Internet seeking to restore the old strictures no matter who wins the White House next year. Among the most vigorous supporters is House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who reportedly told the Democratic Caucus that she would “aggressively pursue” the doctrine’s renewal. “The chances are a lot better than people think,” said Thomas McClusky, vice president of government affairs for the Family Research Council, “of a return of the Fairness Doctrine.”
It was the end of the Fairness Doctrine late in Ronald Reagan’s presidency that cleared the way for the explosive growth of entertaining and vibrant political talk radio as well as for the huge expansion of evangelical and Catholic radio over the last 20 years.
Through giants of the medium, including Dr. James C. Dobson and Rush Limbaugh, the robust presentation of traditional values and conservative views on the airwaves — and listeners’ telephone calls and e-mails to Washington on many issues — became a major factor in reshaping American politics and society. Its eclipse by any new Fairness Doctrine could make the nation’s media dynamics much less favorable to Christian and conservative ideas, proposals and advocates.
That’s why Dr. Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family and host of its daily half-hour radio program for 26 years, recently wrote that the move is “intended to muzzle conservative communicators.”
In Congress, the talk-radio community may have found an ideal champion in Mike Pence, the fourth-term representative from Indiana who was a statewide talk-show host in the ’90s. In June, more than 300 House members voted for the Pence Amendment, which prevented the FCC from any re-institution of the Fairness Doctrine for one year. And then Pence introduced the Broadcaster Freedom Act, which would keep the FCC from re-establishing the doctrine altogether.
“There aren’t enough liberal listeners to talk radio, but that’s OK — the market has just selected that out,” Pence said. “Now what you have are powerful voices in and around the federal government who want to use the august power of the state to impose a given outcome on the marketplace.”
‘BAD POLICY’
The FCC, surveying the mere handful of players in the embryonic post-World War II electronic-media industry, created the Fairness Doctrine in 1949. Broadcast licensees had to ensure coverage of “vitally important controversial issues of interest in the community served by the broadcaster,” and “provide a reasonable opportunity for the presentation of contrasting viewpoints on such issues.” The hammer held by the commission, of course, was its power to renew or strip each station’s license to use the public airwaves.
The Supreme Court upheld the Fairness Doctrine when it was challenged during the ’60s, after getting assurances from FCC lawyers that the doctrine actually increased coverage of controversial issues. But instead of getting more investigative and combative, broadcasters simply tended to pull in their horns and shy away from coverage of prickly topics. That way, they could avoid complaints and requests for air time to present “opposing” views — and, in some cases, sidestep license challenges. In fact, in 1985, the FCC itself concluded that the Fairness Doctrine “chilled” free speech.
What changed: Reagan opposed the Fairness Doctrine, and when he had a chance to appoint FCC members, the process led to the doctrine’s repeal in 1987.
The doctrine was “bad public policy,” then-FCC Chairman Dennis Patrick recently wrote in The Wall Street Journal. “It rested on the presumption that government regulators can coolly review editorial choices and, with the power to license (or not license) stations, improve the quantity and quality of broadcast news.” Not so, he said: By its nature, “government enforcement of ‘fairness’ was extremely political.”
Maybe someone could have looked at the elements that were brewing in 1987 and predicted what was about to happen, but no one did.
As it turned out, the Reagan-era rise of political conservatism, and of evangelical Christianity, created fertile ground for the rise of talk radio. Also, AM-radio owners were looking desperately for some new key to survival — because they largely had remained a backwater of vacuous chatter and static-strewn music that was rapidly being eclipsed by the stereophonic clarity of FM. The proliferation of channels and viewers on cable TV became a model for other media.
Finally, throw in the rise of singular talk talents including Dr. Dobson, who began daily programming in 1981, and Limbaugh, who became nationally syndicated in 1988. Growth in talk radio ignited; the effects were akin to the rapid spread of open markets and free politics behind the Iron Curtain after the fall of the Berlin Wall. “It opened the door to spontaneous, dynamic and market-driven talk on radio, which is the most grassroots of all media,” Harrison, the Talkers publisher, noted.
In fact, news, talk and public-affairs stations rose to 28 percent of AM radio formats and 7 percent of FM in the U.S. by 1995, from just 7 percent of AM formats in 1987 and 3 percent of FM, according to a 1997 study published in the Journal of Legal Studies.
But why were conservative and Christian shows and hosts enjoying the lion’s share of the growth?
Political demographics were part of the reason, said Pence, who hosted a syndicated show out of Indianapolis from 1992 until he assumed his seat in Congress.
“Conservatives by and large are out there making America work, running businesses and organizations,” he said. “And broadcast radio is a medium that busy Americans can easily take advantage of.”
More generally, Harrison added, conservatives “felt that they weren’t being addressed by the mainstream media and found a rallying point around these hosts that gave them the critical mass to be successful.”
MOTIVATING FORCE
During the ’90s, talk and Christian radio became increasingly effective platforms not only for informing and entertaining listeners — but also for motivating them.
Many commentators, for example, have given Limbaugh as much credit as the Republicans’ Contract with America for overturning congressional Democrats in the 1994 election. Limbaugh and his audience helped give GOP members the courage to impeach Clinton in 1998 after the Lewinsky scandal. Listeners to Rush, along with Hannity — the nation’s No.2-ranked AM talker — and many others, clearly played pivotal roles in the presidential elections of 2000 and 2004.
And then there’s Dr. Dobson.
Time after time during his three decades on the air, his prompting of listeners to rain down faxes, e-mails and phone calls on Congress has won the day. In 1990, for example, Focus on the Family listeners called Capitol Hill by the thousands and won passage of a federal child-care tax credit for at-home parents. And more than 1 million callers paralyzed the congressional switchboard in 1992 after Dr. Dobson urged them to protest a bill that he believed would restrict home schooling.
In 1994, Dr. Dobson urged listeners to oppose President Clinton’s education bill, which was intended to further federalize the classroom; they succeeded in stopping it. And in June 2002, when Dr. Dobson became upset that then-Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., was blocking a vote on cloning, he asked listeners to complain to Daschle’s office. Staff members received so many calls that they changed the phone number.
Perhaps ironically, the Democrats’ takeover of Congress last year has helped demonstrate that conservative and Christian talk radio may be more effective than ever. As in the Clinton years, while in power, Democrats have proven a rallying point for conservative hosts — perhaps one reason that Congress’ esteem in the eyes of the American people is lower than ever, according to polls.
And the medium has clearly underscored its continued muscle in an impressive victory this year. In January, Dr. Dobson was among Christian talk-show hosts who weighed in heavily in opposition to S.1, the first bill attempted by the newly Democratic Senate. In another swipe at the free-speech rights of those who oppose them, liberals were trying to complicate communications between grassroots organizations — such as Focus on the Family Action — and their members. Focus Action said the bill was “clearly a concerted effort to insulate legislators from criticism” by such groups at the same time that it protected access by labor unions and other entities.
So on his Jan. 10 radio broadcast, Dr. Dobson and his guests — Tony Perkins, president of FRC; Gary Bauer, president of American Values; and Don Wildmon, of the American Family Association — asked listeners for a million calls to flood Washington.
Once again, the listeners responded.
“Lobby reform issues like this can be very difficult to explain to the grassroots,” said McClusky, of FRC. “But by Tuesday, the phone lines were shut down on Capitol Hill, and suddenly senators were begging to be the one to introduce amendments to the bill — because of the power of talk radio and Dr. Dobson’s leadership.”
OLD DOCTRINE, NEW DANGERS
Talk and Christian radio’s record of economic success and accumulated political, cultural and social influence, of course, are the main reasons the Fairness Doctrine has reared its ugly head again.
Conservative critics scoff that it’s about the only gambit remaining for leftist interests whose own efforts to build a talk-radio following, through entities such as the Air America network, have failed miserably. Unable to beat the Right at the talk-radio game, they suggest, liberals simply want to cancel the contest.
And it provokes them that the Left wants to use the Fairness Doctrine to take over conservatives’ little backyard when liberals already own the rest of the neighborhood. “The Left has been a dismal failure in talk radio, and the Right has been a smashing success, so now the Left wants to take that away,” said Gregory Koukl, host, founder and president of Stand to Reason, a syndicated Christian-talk show based in southern California.
Moreover, the Left is agitating for the Fairness Doctrine at a time when there’s an ever-growing bazaar of opinions available in the information marketplace that swamps the importance of ideological balance in any individual medium. As Bush appointee and current FCC Chairman Kevin Martin noted, “the need for the Fairness Doctrine has lessened” in part because of “the continued proliferation of additional sources of information and programming, including satellite broadcasting and the Internet.”
That’s exactly the reason broadcast TV is largely left out of the new discussion of the Fairness Doctrine even though the medium was covered under it before and, presumably, would be again. The Big Three networks remain among the most reliably liberal news outlets in America. But because cable TV represents such a broad political spectrum, and because it has taken so much market share from broadcast, it would be difficult for anyone to demonstrate that there is a dangerous overall one-sidedness on the tube. (And, for the record, the National Association of Broadcasters, which counts ABC, CBS and NBC among its members, supports Pence’s Broadcaster Freedom Act.)
But liberals are pressing their case for a return of the Fairness Doctrine because they’re feeling their oats after last fall’s elections and what they perceive as bright prospects for further congressional gains in 2008 — and maybe for a recapture of the White House.
There might be some new problems as well, given the large and diverse number of activist groups today. “Who’s to say that opinion is only measured in two sides of a story?” asked Harrison. “What if there are 10 sides?” Most likely, he said, “rather than running the risk of politicians and bureaucrats telling you where you can stand and what you can say, I would think that most licensees would choose not to do politics at all.”
The Fairness Doctrine might even produce a crisis of conscience for Christian radio supporters, to say nothing of the people running the stations. “It would place donors in a moral quandary if the station would be forced to air anti-Christian content as a matter of course,” noted Craig Parshall, senior vice president of the National Religious Broadcasters Association.
For all those reasons, conservatives and Christians aren’t taking lightly the liberal critique of their dominance of talk radio. Their leaders don’t want to make another mistake similar to their 2002 acquiescence to the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance reform law, which turned out to drastically limit political advertising and, therefore, the effectiveness of many grassroots conservative organizations.
“Many Americans didn’t have a great understanding of the First Amendment implications of McCain-Feingold,” Pence said. “But it’s hard to miss the point that those who would impose the Fairness Doctrine on the airwaves again could only do it by restricting the freedom of broadcasters to air their opinions and the freedom of Americans to choose whoever they want to listen to.”
That’s why a move to revive the Fairness Doctrine could meet stiff and visceral resistance from conservatives and Christians who have come to cherish talk radio. Talkers editor Harrison believes the policy’s backers will fail for that very reason. l
Dale D. Buss is a freelance writer in Michigan and the author of Family Man, the 2005 biography of Dr. James C. Dobson.
Paid for by Focus on the Family Action
This article appeared in Citizen
magazine. Copyright © 2007 Focus on the Family. All rights reserved. International copyright secured.
