Another Assault on Freedom of the Airwaves

As free speech advocates gear up to oppose revival of the so-called “Fairness Doctrine,” another Orwellian-named government effort to dictate the content of radio and TV news and opinion has been hatched by the Bush administration’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC). So far, there’s been much less focus on the “localism rule” – even though it would have a similar chilling effect on First Amendment rights.

Under the FCC’s proposed regulations, owners of radio and TV stations would become subject to permanent advisory boards whose members – aka “community organizers” - would be chosen according to politically correct multi-cultural nostrums requiring representation of all “stakeholders.” These boards would be empowered by the FCC to decide if stations were airing a “sufficient amount of community-responsive programming”- with neither “sufficient” nor “responsive” defined. A negative advisory board finding could mean loss of a station owner’s broadcasting license.

If this proposed regulation is adopted, political activists with ideological agendas on advisory boards will be able to dictate that Christian radio stations air programs advocating abortion and gay marriage, which they oppose as a matter of religious conviction. This proposal is clearly antithetical to the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech and religion.

It will undermine an uncensored, independent press in a free society as a tool for holding politicians and bureaucrats accountable, and make government the arbiter of acceptable religious doctrine.

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