The First Limbaughs
In an era of closely divided elections and partisan polarization, a powerful, popular but insecure president resolved to silence hostile media voices by abusing IRS audits, pushing the Federal Communications Commission to launch a campaign of harassment, and even blocking broadcast licenses in a bid to ensure his iffy reelection.
These chilling developments bear no connection to the controversial term of Donald Trump; they all happened during the tenure of John F. Kennedy. Despite his reputation as a thoughtful, pragmatic liberal, JFK resorted to distinctly illiberal measures that, as it turned out, proved uniquely successful in censoring his most strident radio critics. That’s the conclusion of
After Twitter permanently suspended Donald Trump’s account, conservative interest in mandating online platform neutrality spiked. Meanwhile, progressives alarmed by the Capitol riot called for reviving the Fairness Doctrine to combat the misinformation circulating about the election. The national mood has never been more favorable for some kind of government regulation of the internet.
The Fairness Doctrine hasn’t been active policy at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) since the 1980s, so public knowledge of the doctrine is hazy at best. But the more you learn about the actual history of the Fairness Doctrine and its antecedents, the clearer it becomes that applying similar regulations to the internet would be a mistake.