Nothing's fair about forcing broadcasters to air content

[Commentary] The Fairness Doctrine mandated that broadcasters provide balanced coverage of controversial issues. To avoid federal second-guessing and expensive lawsuits, most broadcasters chose to say nothing. In effect, while trying to mandate "fairness," the government instead stifled broadcast discussion. Fortunately, the Federal Communications Commission discarded the Fairness Doctrine in 1987. Broadcasting and democracy have done just fine ever since, with nearly 2,000 radio stations now providing the conversation of democracy in talk formats, compared to about 200 back then. Harry Truman once said, "You can never get all the facts from just one newspaper." That applies to the broadcasting world, too. It is up to citizens to get information from multiple sources, and Congress has no role in ensuring that happens.

(McCall is a professor of communication at DePauw University.)