Some of you may find this post boring. Some of you may not care at all…but I have to say, this subject ranks near the top of my list in things that make me insane. I’m talking about the Fairness Doctrine (what a misleading title). I’ll sum it up first and then go in depth as it’s VERY important to look at the history. The Fairness Doctrine is legislation that would require certain media sources to give full access to opposing viewpoints at the broadcaster’s expense. Now, the Fairness Doctrine, which was repealed in 1987, is getting a healthy dose of attention as some want to reenact it. A quick history of the Fairness Doctrine shows a strong central theme. In 1969 the Fairness Doctrine was enforced as the Supreme Court upheld its constitutionality based on two requirements: 1: Broadcasters had to devote a reasonable portion of broadcast time to the discussion of issues of public importance. 2: In doing so, the broadcaster must be “fair”- must affirmatively endeavor to make their broadcast available to the opposing viewpoint…if sponsored programming was not available to the opposite viewpoint and the broadcast still wanted to discuss this topic, they would have to provide programming to ...