In 1966, a young attorney barely out of law school, John Banzhaf, pushed that strategy even further. Brash, self-confident, and iconoclastic, Banzhaf was lounging at home during the Thanksgiving holiday of 1966 (watching the omnipresent cigarette ads) when his mind raced to an obscure legal clause. In 1949, Congress had issued the “fairness doctrine,” which held that public broadcast media had to allow “fair” airtime to opposing viewpoints on controversial issues.
