The FCC Finally Does Something Right

Good for the FCC for formally eliminating the Fairness Doctrine, which it wisely hadn't been enforcing anyway for twenty years.  The last thing we need is the government having any say whatsoever in the political content of radio and television broadcasts.

As a case in point, consider the advent and growth of cable TV news.   Without any FCC supervision, we have conservative Fox, progressive MSNBC, and down the middle (if usually boring) CNN.  In other words, the marketplaces of ideas and money brought about a very well balanced system of news delivery and commentary.

The next thing the FCC should do it is eliminate itself - or, at very least, the fines it has been levying against broadcasters it deems to be putting out "objectionable" content.   Like the Fairness Doctrine and just about everything the FCC does other than keeping track of broadcast frequencies - increasingly unnecessary in our age of Internet streaming - the FCC is in principle and practice a blatant violation of the First Amendment. Paul Levinson's books ... Paul Levinson's music