The Problem with Liberal Fantasies about Restricting Free Speech
This is what happens when a columnist writes with great passion and doesn’t bother to look up the specifics of what he’s writing about.
Fox News, Fox Business Network, One America Network, and NewsMax TV are cable stations and do not broadcast over public airwaves. The Federal Communications Commission has little authority over cable channels. (The FCC might have a little more authority over Fox News Sunday and other news programs that carried by the Fox Broadcasting Company.) The Fairness Doctrine applied to broadcasters who used public airwaves. The FCC commissioners decided to revoke the Fairness Doctrine in 1987, a unanimous 4–0 decision involving two Republican commissioners and two Democratic commissioners. The FCC counsel concluded that the rule had become counterproductive, as broadcasters “had shied away from covering controversial issues in news, documentaries and editorial advertisements.”
After the decision, Floyd Abrams, a lawyer who specializes in First Amendment cases, told the New York Times, “This is the beginning of the end of Governmental control over the content of what appears on television.”
In short, Boot wants to reinstate government control over the content of what appears on television.
This is what happens when a columnist writes with great passion and doesn’t bother to look up the specifics of what he’s writing about.
Fox News, Fox Business Network, One America Network, and NewsMax TV are cable stations and do not broadcast over public airwaves. The Federal Communications Commission has little authority over cable channels. (The FCC might have a little more authority over Fox News Sunday and other news programs that carried by the Fox Broadcasting Company.) The Fairness Doctrine applied to broadcasters who used public airwaves. The FCC commissioners decided to revoke the Fairness Doctrine in 1987, a unanimous 4–0 decision involving two Republican commissioners and two Democratic commissioners. The FCC counsel concluded that the rule had become counterproductive, as broadcasters “had shied away from covering controversial issues in news, documentaries and editorial advertisements.”
After the decision, Floyd Abrams, a lawyer who specializes in First Amendment cases, told the New York Times, “This is the beginning of the end of Governmental control over the content of what appears on television.”
In short, Boot wants to reinstate government control over the content of what appears on television.