Have you seen today's Boston Globe?...

[Bill Smith]

Never, ever, forget that Dan Rea's baptism in broadcasting  came when the
suits at Group W became nervous about Jerry's anti-war  commentary and its
implications under the Nixon regime for Westinghouse Electric. Rea was a
leader of Young Americans for Freedom  (YAF), a  right-wing group ostensibly
devoted to show the world that all of America's Youth wasn't wild-eyed
radicals.  Rea was of the Gordon Nelson style of right-wing kookery, but
managed, somehow, to travel from his seat as an opinionated right-wing talk
show host down the hall to "respected journalist" in television. (Just try
to imagine the right-wing bloviating that would result today if a liberal
talk show host became a reporter on a traditional TV newcast.)  Group W
wasn't required by  by  equal time requirements per se to air the  Rea radio
show, but the existence of the Fairness Doctrine meant the general operating
philosopies of broadcasters included the notion that you really needed to
give airtime to divergent opinions lest you  be reduced to seat-squirming
during ascertainment and license-renewal. This presumption that the license
carried with it the need to be fair extended beyond the paper calculation of
equal time requirements to a general belief that in serving the public
interest, necessity and convenience, broadcasters had an affirmative
obligation to present varying points of view.

Like it or not, if there was no fairness doctrine in the 1970s, Dan Rea
would be just another lawyer.

The manner in which the fairness doctrine argument is being framed today is
absurd.  It doesn't mean that if you air hour of Severin  you have to
balance his nonsense with an hour of the points of view he doesn't represent
(such as intelligence). It  does mean you have to allow reasonable
opportunity for the discussion of conflicting views of public importance.
 The right wing nutbags are trying to re-frame the issue as censorship,
forgetting that their argument for gutting the fairness doctrine was the
wide array of broadcast voices being heard during the days of 7-7-7.
 Boston's  broadcasters of  the  70s,  included not only the chains CBS, RKO
General, Blair, Group W, General Electric and  Plough, but also smaller,
regional and local operators such as Champion, Richman Bros., Tarlow,
McCormack, Puritan, Park City, Gowdy,  Hastings, Pilgrim/Carter,
Sheridan/Nash,   Lerner, Fairbanks, and Jones/Charles River.  Broadcast
radio voices today are reduced to Entercom, Greater Media, CBS, and Clear
Channel with the token presence on marginal signals of Salem and Nassau.

The argument we heard two decades ago for abolishing the fairness doctrine
on the ground that many voices were being heard over broadcast radio
stations has been tossed onto the scrap heap of history. The idea that
broadcast 'voices' are limited because ownership limits have been trashed in
favor of greed.   As a result, the wackos of the right have reframed the
issue as one of censorship.  Don't for a minute think this issue bursting
onto the public stage has anything to do with the fairness doctrine OR
censorship. It's  all about having another false issue with which to taunt
the center/left and to use in inciting their Birchite core audience with the
absurd notion that fairness means they'll be muzzled, or that Rush will be
banned from speaking out or will be forced to give hours of time to
America-hating-Arab-extremists. It's pure, unadulterated drivel. What is
 remarkable is that the right wingers are apparently succeeding in their
attempt to falsely re-cast the issue, and how blithely  people who should
know better are allowing the issue to be framed as one of censorship by the
right wing nutbags when  the real issue is access -- ironically, the very
antithesis of censorship..