Selects: How the Fairness Doctrine Worked

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That's the right way we gotta be going.

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or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, it's me Josh. And for this week's episode, I've chosen our 2022 episode on the fairness doctrine. It's been coming up all over the place lately.

So I thought it was high time that we released it as a select. And I went back and listened to this one. And I found that Chuck just kind of sat back and really just let me go. And I really appreciate him for that

because this one really got my goat in joy. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know. A production of I Heart Radio. Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and there's Charles W. Chuop Bryant

and there's Jared Hogg, the Roman land. But all time over there, and this is stuff you shouldn't have. Wow. I got to pep it up a little bit, you know. Is that what that was?

Oh, you got to screw it up a little bit. That's what I meant to say. Speaking of screwing up, Chicago Illinois is screwing up. It is. I was trying to think about this. Like, which approach should we take?

Should we just outright lie and say like,

“there's very few tickets left so you better go get them now?”

No. Or should we shame them and say there are plenty of tickets left to disappointing amount of tickets left? I think we should just be honest and not shame them. Okay.

But express our disappointment. Nothing works better than disappointment. You know, Chicago we really expected a little more from you than this. So if you're confused about what we're talking about, probably because you haven't heard.

And that's our fault about our live shows coming up.

All around the country to cities we've never been to before.

Yeah, yeah, we've never been to Orlando before. We've never been to Portland, Maine before. That's right. But we are going to Chicago again because we thought Chicago loved us. Some July 24th at the Harris Theater.

Great. And then Toronto, the next night on July 25th, they're buying a lot of tickets. They love us up there. Yeah, at the Danforth.

And then Boston, August 29th, Portland, Maine, August 30th, Orlando, New Orleans, October 9th, and then Brooklyn, the 23rd through the 25th. Yeah, October. Three night run at the Bell House in Brooklyn,

which is going to be great. That's wrong. But again, Toronto, you're doing great guys. Keep it up. Chicago, you could stand to step it up a little bit.

“You got a little bit of time, but why wait, you know?”

Yeah, I mean, the seats are only going to get worse. True that, Chuck. True that. So just go to S.Y. SK Live for our home, our touring home on the web. Thanks to our buddies at Squarespace.

Oh, yeah. And now let's talk about the fairness doctrine. Okay. We actually need to, if this were say, pre-1987, we would need to have Jerry come in and say,

so here's all the reasons why you shouldn't buy tickets to stuff you should know live. If we were going to follow the fairness doctrine, but it's not time in 1987. And as a matter of fact, I wonder how podcasting would,

how this would apply, or have applied to podcasting,

that kind of grew up around the fairness doctrine, who knows?

“But it's a fascinating, what are those called when, when it's impossible?”

Sure, there's another word for it. When it's something that just can't possibly happen, kind of like speculative fiction or something like that, I can't remember. But, you know, since podcasts don't fall under the FCC, then that would have mattered.

Oh, yeah, I guess that's true. Yeah, we could, if we wanted to right now, we could say every curse word, every awful thing in the world, under the sign, we elect to not to do that, everyone. I heard a radio DJ the other day say,

I know you want to curse so bad right now. This is why we're getting a podcast. [LAUGHTER] And I was like, yeah, I guess we could, I guess we could curse, but I like that we don't chuck.

“I do, too, and if you want to hear me curse, just A,”

you can come to a live show. True, true, yeah. Because it happens a little bit, or B, you can just join me over a movie crash. I cussed a lot over there.

Yeah, I think at first people were like, oh,

and then now, I think people go, listen, in part two here, you curse. They like to hear that blue street coming out of the real me. Oh, I'd like to think that both sides are the real you put together. Well, for roughly two and a half hours a week, this is the real me. Do you find it difficult not to curse on the show?

No, I mean, I'm fully used to it by now. Yeah, but I definitely am not as fully free wheeling as I normally am. Yeah, I guess I should say, I want to give the impression that I'm like some, you know, flanders, type, or whatever. I curse pretty routinely myself in regular life, but I guess I find it kind of comforting,

just knowing that there's a safe space where I don't say the airport a lot.

“You should start another podcast, just called "Filth Florn Filth", which I'll charge Clark.”

Okay, that's a pretty good idea. But none of this has to do with the 1920s, except for the fact that people did not curse on the radio back then, either, because there weren't a lot of people on the radio in the 1920s. Not actually pre or early early 1920s that is. Right, pre November, 1920.

There was not much going on on the radio aside for Morse code. Some ham radio operators. And remember, we did a pretty good episode on ham radio. Remember correctly, yeah. But one of the things I remember about that ham radio episode is that there was a,

kind of a whole hacker and archic ethos surrounding the early days of radio. You know, it's a total free for all. You can broadcast on whatever station you wanted to and get an argument with, you know, the government, if you wanted to, who cared? There was not a lot of ways to trace anybody.

So there is a lot of anything goes mentality among the early ham radio operators.

But that was basically all you would hear is people saying, like, hey, how's it going?

Kind of thing, you know, maybe some heavy breathing. And then in November, 1920, a station called KDKA actually organized itself. And the first broadcast that it put out was reading the election results from the James Cock, James Cox, oh my gosh, I almost just violated FCC rule of the dirty talk. James Cox, Warren Harding, 1920 presidential election.

It was the first commercial licensed radio broadcast in the world, I think. Yeah, I think that's a great trivia question. If someone were to say what was what city, you know, hosted or whatever was part of the first radio, commercial radio broadcast, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. And the follow-up would be in what did they broadcast, a presidential election outcome,

which was a big deal because it's weird to think about in 1920 that people all over the country were waiting for that morning paper to come out except in Pittsburgh. They knew. Right, they did know.

And not everybody in Pittsburgh, just the people who had basically built their own radios.

Because that was the radios that were around. They were like eight people. It's frirk pretty much pretty much. But the fact that this happened in words spread pretty quickly, yeah, some people in Pittsburgh knew the election results because they were listening to the radio.

They ran around yelling that out and said, we heard it on a radio and everyone's like these people will welcome up. Yeah. And also, other little known fact. The first song played on the radio was radio killed the newspaper star.

Did you just make that effort? Did you have that prepped? I just made it.

Good job. Thank you, man.

“I'm glad you got like that grudging, good job.”

And there was almost contempt in that first initial hat.

Well, because off the cuff, that's a great joke. But if you workshop that over a few hours, then I don't know. When's the last time I workshop the joke? I don't know. Okay.

You don't let me in your workshop. No, no. You keep it a close to the garbage secret. Okay. So here's the point.

This is the reason we're even talking about that first broadcasts because that was November 1920.

“By 1924, I think they're in 1920, they're like 20,000 radios.”

1924, they're one and a half million radios in the United States.

By 1930, 80, no, 1940, 83% of every household in America had a radio. And so there was this massive transition from distributing news and making sure everybody was up to date on all the information they needed to be like a smart voter or a whole like political or social or cultural opinions that transition moved from newspapers, from print. Which still hung around, sure.

But over to radio, radio became much, much more prevalent as far as the spread of information to an increasingly large number of people went in the United States in a very short time in like 20 years. Yeah. So in the 1940s, the FCC, and there's some background all this that we'll get to, but

we haven't even really said what the fairness doctrine is yet. No, no. Finally, in 1949, the US government said, you know what, we need some help here. We're a little bit worried that some private citizen who's wealthy could go and buy all the radio stations and essentially propagandize the news, and there's nothing we can do about

it. Yeah. So basically what they said was this, there is one thing we can do about it. We can flex our muscle as the government and specifically say, you broadcasters can't do that.

That's right. Something called the fairness doctrine, which had the overall goal of basically, and it's very, kind of cute to look back at this time period. But it's initial goal was to make sure that all the information on the radio waves was good information and true and fair and enriching and there's only so much space on a radio

dial.

So, and this is, this is very critical that there were a limited number of frequencies

available. Yeah, it's frequency scarcity, I think. Yeah, that's just put a pin in that, because that's a very big deal is how this weighed and the favor of the fairness doctrine, and then also kind of help kill it in some ways. But basically, the very progressive view that public interest outweigh private interest in

the public has a right to really good information over the free speech of the broadcast or even. So, you just hit it right on the head, like that is the crux of the fairness doctrine. And it seems like, okay, depending on your viewpoint, either like the most vial idea ever, or just a completely sensible idea.

And the reason that it can present the same two totally different opinions is because this idea, the fairness doctrine, sits right at the heart of the difference between the right and the left, between conservativeism and libertarianism and liberalism, right?

“And it is, it comes down to this, like if you, if you have to promote public intercourse,”

like people understanding, not doing it in public, but I mean, of course, discourse. I just did public intercourse, so yeah, I guess doing it in public. If you're going to promote public discourse and protect it as a government saying, like it's the role of government to say, we need to make sure that the quality of the information that's getting out there is protected.

And we have to do that, we have to limit what broadcasters can say with the curtail free speech to people on the right, like right there, full stop. That's a problem. That's an issue. It has fatally flawed because you are curtailing the free speech of somebody, whether it's

NBC or Joe Schmo, who wants to say something on the radio, it doesn't matter. You are curtailing free speech and therefore that is wrong. People on the left say, well, well, well, well, well, this is a privilege to broadcast on the radio and in order to protect the larger public and its interests, we have to curtail

And there's no way to reconcile the two.

You can't.

“You have to choose a side, you have to form an opinion one way or the other.”

And whatever you choose is your larger view of whether you're a liberal or whether you're conservative. Yeah, pretty much. I mean, it fell along those lines back then and still does today, even though the fairness doctrine isn't around, the ideology is.

Well, it keeps getting brought out and kind of forced along like an angry parade route in order to kind of say, look, look, look what the government's capable of doing. Look at the overreach, they really want to do. Don't let them do it again with X, you know? So it is.

It's a huge flash point and it's understandable why it seems like so kind of limp and bureaucratic

and boring, but when you dig into the history of the whole thing and even the contemporary idea behind it, it's a huge flash point politically in the United States. Yeah, so it had a couple of main components and then within that a couple of big big rules, the very important rules, the components were, they were known together as the fairness rule, which is private broadcasters must report on matters of public interest.

Like, it's a responsibility of you as a broadcaster. That's right. And private broadcasters must cover opposing perspectives regarding that public interest. That's a big one. That's a big one.

And then the little rules there, the personal attack rule said that if you're broadcaster and you are going to run a negative story on somebody or something, prior to that, you have to let these people know or this organization know and give them time to respond on the air and then the political editorial rule, which is private broadcasters that air editorial programming that endorses a political candidate must inform other candidates and

offer them time to respond on air not to be confused with the equal time rule. That's different. Yeah, the equal time rule is why debates have or supposed to have all candidates because you're supposed to, if you give one candidate at time, air time to say, "Hey, here's my platform.

You're supposed to give all other candidates the equal amount of time." And that political editorial rule kind of, it's close to it and it follows in the same tradition in principle. But really, the personal attack rule and the political editorial rule that were part of the fairness doctrine, that's just like the foundation of good journalism basically.

It was not radical ideas, that's good point. The idea though that public, the, or that private broadcasters have to talk about issues and then have to air opposing viewpoints, that is kind of controversial because it's

“saying like, "We, the government are saying you have to do this.”

This is your responsibility." And the idea that the government even has control over airwaves is, is, in, dispute. But it actually dates pretty far back and we'll talk about the background, the backstory behind the fairness doctrine after a message. How about that?

Sounds good.

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“names in the culture, like Swaley, do you realize how legend there we are?”

I appreciate it. I've seen him, and I'm like, "Man, I still got so much more to do, like, friends. He's got like 30 albums. We've got like five right now, like, that's the right way we gotta be going." Yeah, that's a good attitude.

You also hear stories from industry legends and hip-hop pioneers, like Fab 5 Freddy. I directed when Naz is their early video. Which one?

Wow.

“I literally filmed in his apartment in Queens Bridge.”

His mom's been still up in that apartment.

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Listen to We the Unhoused on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. Okay Chuck, so there's one thing to really understand what we're talking about here. Initially we were talking about radio waves and then eventually TV waves and then eventually turned into the internet.

But all these things, especially something like air air waves for radio and TV, these exist naturally, right? Yeah. There's not like a government factory that produces radio waves and then the government can say, "Well, we produce these so we can give you a much."

Do you think, man, that's an artificial idea that the government can say, "We regulate these air waves." Because it's citizens listening to the stuff that's broadcast on the air waves and it's private companies broadcasting on the air waves using equipment that's manufactured by other private companies.

“So the government is insinuating itself and saying, "Well, well, this is too important”

to leave to the market." We have to regulate this in some ways and we're going to do that. And the whole thing actually started with the Titanic to tell you the truth. The Titanic ship? The Titanic ship, the very one.

That's right. Leading up to the Titanic, you know, radio was being used and quite a bit in maritime communication. In fact, we even passed the ship Act of 1910, which required ships leaving the United States to have radio equipment to know how to use it and sort of laid out some basic broadcasting standards.

But what they didn't do was say, "All right, we're going to assign radio frequencies and we're going to like a reserve of a channel for emergencies only." This kind of stung them because a couple of years after that, a little boat called the RMS Titanic. This ship, the Titanic?

It wasn't a little boat. It was a ocean liner. Sure. I used to know the difference between the ocean liner and a cruise ship. I think ocean liners are transatlantic.

Is that the deal?

I've never heard the difference.

I think that's the deal. It was one of the same or something. No, I think an ocean liner specifically can cross the two different continents. I guess a cruise ship could just hug the coast or something like that. I think that's the ship.

But I might be making all that up. I got you. The Titanic sank, there was a lot of radio traffic going on as the disaster breaks out obviously. So, even though in Newfoundland, they heard very early on and picked up this distress call,

they couldn't really get it out because everything was all clogged up. Yeah, there are a lot of ham radio operators screwing things up at the time. That's right.

“That's what prompted the radio active 1912, which was sort of the beginnings of the foundation”

of what would eventually become the fairness doctrine because what it did was it established

spectrum allocation and the FCC basically said, hey, listen, if you want to broadcast,

you can't just broadcast, you got to come to us and get a license. Yeah, initially it was the commerce department that was issuing licenses. And then came the radio active 1927 that formed the radio commission and they started handling licenses. Not only did they start saying, okay, you're a broadcaster, here's your license.

This is the frequency that you can broadcast on prior to that.

That was the commerce department that did that, but there was no way to police it. And so if you were say NBC radio and there were a bunch of people broadcasting on your frequency at 7 p.m., you'd just switch to, yeah, well, no, you'd just switch to a different frequency and start broadcasting. And so there's no way to police it. Well, with the radio active 1927 and the creation of this radio commission, there was a

way to police it because you could have your license revoked. And if you kept broadcasting, guys would come to your house and kidnap your family.

“Yeah, but the really important thing, and this is how it, not your family, right?”

The really important thing was that it established what we talked about before, which is spectrum scarcity. There's only so much space now, if everyone has to apply for a license who wants to broadcast, it's just, it was very key in the setup and then, like I said, eventual downfall of the fairness doctrine. Yeah, because it says this, like, okay, here's the full, here's the full spectrum, the radio

spectrum that we can broadcast on. And we're going to carve it up and each person gets a specific frequency to broadcast on. That means that there's a finite number of frequencies. So there's a finite number of licenses, which means that not everybody can have a license to broadcast, which means that the people who do have that license to broadcast have a very important privilege afforded to them. And because it's a privilege, because the government

is insinuated itself and said, we're doling out these privileges. We've decided we, the government, have decided that you have a responsibility to present fair and balanced reporting

to the public, including basically all sides of an issue. Like you have a responsibility

“that supersedes your right to free speech as a broadcaster. That was, that's what spectrum”

scarcity created. Right, the 1927 radio act while it did establish that it kind of made some errors basically and how they set it up. There are a lot of misspelling. Yeah, there are a lot of misspelling. But they would say basically to the broadcasters, you have to air content in support of quote, public convenience, interest or necessity in quote, but they didn't really define what

that was. Which by the way, I looked at it. I was like, what does public convenience mean? Apparently the UK, it means a public toilet. And that's the only definition I could ever find for it. So somebody just made that up. Yeah, I know the air content about public toilets. Right, nothing great, actually. Like that part from naked gotten. It's just nothing but the sounds of

people peeing. But this is a big problem because if something isn't clearly defined, then it can't be enforced. Right, you know. So in 1934, they knew that this was a problem. This was, how many years later? Like seven years later. And they said, you know what, we need to issue another act because we're the federal government. Right. And so the federal communications act replace the radio act. The FCC was born, replaced the radio commission. And the FCC said,

all right, the first thing we got to do is define what this public interest thing is all about.

Right, because not only does it make a difficult to enforce, it makes it difficult to follow. So even if you're broadcasting, you're like, I totally agree with this. I do have a right and a responsibility. What's this public communications thing again? Like, how do I do this? What am I supposed to be doing? It was like, I don't know. And if it's not defined, yeah,

“you can't enforce it. You also can't follow it if you want to follow it. So there was just too”

much gray area. And so the FCC, when this was created, this idea of, okay, we're going to set about defining this stuff and really generating this idea of what it means to be a responsible broadcaster. It happened at a really liberal time in America's history. Right after the new deal had really kind of come along and changed the complexion of America pretty dramatically. And liberalism and progressiveism had really set in and was entrenched in the fabric of American politics.

And so there was this idea that the best way to prevent broadcasters from asserting and overbearing influence on public discourse because they had the loudest voice because they had the radio licenses. Was to just say, you guys can't editorialize at all. And this became known as the Mayflower

decision or the Mayflower doctor. And it was a 1941 FCC ruling that basically said, you know what,

you guys, you guys have to basically be neutral in that you can't say anything. You can't present any particular side. If we find out that you guys are promoting say the policy agenda or the favorite

And that was kind of like the line that they drew. No editorializing whatsoever.

That's right. And that really sort of laid the groundwork in a big, big way for the fairness doctrine, even though the fairness doctrine sort of undid that. It did. And said,

“well, you know, editorialize but you just have to do it on both sides. Right. You have to”

present, present, present, both sides. And like on the one hand, that was a gift to the broadcasters, right? They were saying, okay, you can use your own voice. You can state your own opinion. You can support your own political candidate. But you have to give air time to the other political candidate. You have to give air time to people with an opposing view of what you just said. So it was kind of like a compromise, but it was also a weakening of the progressiveist agenda, I guess.

Yeah, and the broadcasters did not like it for sure, because again, they were still sort of confused about what what does public importance mean. We're not even sure, you know, everything's decided and applied on a case by case basis and other words. Yeah, that's a big one. Yeah, in other words,

if somebody just files a complaint, basically, they will take up that complaint and hear that

“complaint, but it wasn't like a big sweeping thing. No, but it was also a Chuck. That means”

that it's a capricious and arbitrary, basically, applying the rule on a case by case basis, rather than a sweeping regulation. But it's also a weakness because it means that the FCC is saying, we'll leave it to you, the broadcasters, to police yourselves. We're only going to act when somebody complains. Yeah, so what happened in a lot of cases was some radio stations. We're like, you know, I'm not even going to go there, and I'm going to avoid controversy at all, you know, all

together, because I don't think we pointed out. It wasn't just about politics. It was basically covered controversial issues in general. And this will play a big part like everything from climate denial to the anti-vax movement in the 1980s. They all had to have equal time under the fairness doctrine. And a lot of people point to the fairness doctrine as like how these movements got jump started to begin with because they didn't put those opinions in context. They were just like,

you know, they didn't say this is very scientifically valid. And now here's the opposing viewpoint, which has no science to back it up. Right, exactly. And the fact that they didn't do that, they were airing on the side of caution over editorializing, but also probably they were trying to make sure that everybody was was not offended. They didn't offend either side because they didn't want to be boycotted with advertising too or find sure. Yeah. So that was a big problem with the fairness

doctrine is that it was ill-defined. It was it opened the door for opposing viewpoints that that that put them on equal footing or equal ground with with with with other viewpoints that were say scientifically backed, which created what's called the false balance problem. And then

there was opposition to it. To basically the to the fairness doctrine from from the outset,

not just the broadcasters who thought they didn't want any kind of restriction on their speech,

“but also interestingly, it represented a loophole to combat advertising too, which I think the”

FCC hadn't thought of, but they said, yeah, this actually applies when it came up. There was a ruling in 1967 that found that cigarette advertising qualified as a, a presentation of one viewpoint of a controversial subject, basically cigarettes, smoking's great, go, go smoke some cigarettes. And so some consumer groups petition the FCC and said, hey, we should be able to give the opposing viewpoint, don't smoke cigarettes that's bad for you. And the FCC said, you're absolutely right.

An advertiser was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. This is a big deal. And now they jumped in to back up the national association of broadcasters, which was opposed to the fairness doctrine in general. Yeah. And it also, you know, that kind of thing, if advertising counts that opens the doors and it did for, you know, like, and we'll get to this more specifically later, but like if a power company wanted to do an ad about their great nuclear power plant that they were going to build, like a liberal

group can come forward and say, no, no, no, like that's not an ad. I know they're paying for airspace, but that means we need to talk about the hills of nuclear power. Right, right. And I mean, even if it wasn't the opposing group could say, we get free airtime to say that this is the opposite of that. And so if you're a broadcaster, especially if you're in a like a successful market,

but it may also, you may have, like, an interest in whatever the other group is protesting. So just on that, in that respect, as well, you don't really want to air the opposing view. The problem with the fairness doctrine, if you're libertarian or conservative,

“is that it said you have to do that. You have to air the opposing view. The SEC says so.”

That's right. So you got to think this is going to end up in court at some point. And it did quite a few times over the years, not surprisingly. And for about a

20 to 30 year period, US courts basically supported the FCC in fulfilling this mandate.

There were some, some real highlights in 1969. There were a couple of big court rulings that affirmed this enforcement. One was Red Lion Broadcasting Company Incorporated, the FCC. It's a little mouthy. So this one was sort of two cases in one. The Supreme Court is able to kill two birds. One case was an FCC appeal of a lower court ruling. This said this, you know, the personal attack in political editorial rules, those two big rules were unconstitutional.

And the second was a broadcaster appealing of a lower court ruling that said the FCC's application

“of those rules was constitutional. So, all right, you guys, let's just combine this into one”

thing. And we'll hear the case. And in the latter one, there was an investigative journalist named Fred J. Cook.

And he followed a complaint. And like we said, it was case by case stuff. So this complaint made it all the way to the Supreme Court. Fred Cook followed a complaint against Red Lion Broadcasting, who owned WCGB. Because they had a broadcast with Reverend Billy James Hargis that claimed that Cook, who was an author, and wrote a very kind of salacious expose about the FBI. And this, this reverence said, you know what, this author is, it worked for the communist. And he attacked

J. Edgar Hoover. And it turns out they didn't contact Cook to give him that equal chance to respond. And they denied him his demand for that. Right. And it made it all the way to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court said, you know what, Red Lion, you're wrong. You got to do this. Right. So, and since the Supreme Court ruled that Cook could have equal air time,

“this is like, I think 12 years or nine years later, I could not find anywhere if you actually took”

him up on it or not. But the whole thing was just like a, it was an ad hominum attack and attack on him on Cook because Cook had written a book against Barry Goldwater, who was a presidential candidate at the time. And the people who ran Red Lion didn't like it. So they attacked Cook. But he, so they, in this ruling though, and this is the whole point, not that Cook got his time, it was air time. But that the, the Supreme Court ruled that the SEC applying this fairness

doctrine was good and fine and constitutional, which is a big deal. They ruled that the SEC could constitutionally exercise this fairness doctrine, which is a, that was just enormous. Yeah, it was a very, very big deal. Yeah. Uh, the other big kind of landmark case was that same year, um, the Office of Communication of the United Church of Christ at all, the SEC. No, there's no lady title. Right. Uh, those US appeals court who overturned the SEC's decision,

not to consider a petition to revoke the license of Lamar broadcasting, uh, WLBT. So the citizens got together, uh, civil rights groups and they were like, you know what, this station is awful. They are, first of all, they're not covering, um, the civil rights movement and they're flat out racist in segregationists. Right. And so we're going to petition this in the SEC denied the petition, uh, in 1964 and said, citizens don't have the standing to file a petition like this,

which is pretty surprising because the, you know, the citizens are the ones that the SEC have

always been like fighting for. Right. It was a little, um, hinky, hinky is the word that we stick

to. So the petitioners appealed in a 1966, uh, yeah, 66, the court of appeals, uh, for DC said, you do have standing to petition the FCC to revoke a license. Right. Because that's all about protecting the public interest, which is what the FCC was supposed to be doing in the first place. So get back to work. And finally, 1967, uh, the FCC revisited that petition, rejected it again, right? Uh, because they said, hey, this station is actually kind of taking some steps since then,

and we think they're doing the right thing. Petitioner still weren't happy. They appealed that in 1969, uh, the FCC actually revoked Lamar broadcasting's license. They did as far as, as far as

doctor. Like permanently, yeah. Right. Um, they never got it back and chuck a little cherry on top

because Lamar broadcasting lost the license of WLBT in Jackson, Mississippi. It was up for grabs, and it was, uh, taken by a majority black-owned group that, uh, that took over the station at that point. Nice. And that nice? Yeah. So, um, things seem to be going smoothly for the fairness doctor,

“and what could go wrong? Well, we'll tell you what could go wrong after break. How about that?”

[Music] Joy is essential, and it's also elusive. You can't order it, you can't borrow it, or simply hope it

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existence. Joy 101. It's a new podcast hosted by me, How To Copy. Together, guys, we'll have meaningful conversations with the world's most fascinating people. And our tame legend, sports icons, wellness experts, and everyday people will share how they find, allow, and experience joy. And I'll offer some of my own tips and takes on seeking a more balanced and harmonious life. If you're craving inspiration, support, and useful tools

“to maximize your joy, tune into these candid, uplifting, and moving on-air chats. Joy after a”

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to you. Listen to Joy 101 on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Juniors Black Music Month, and on the DrinkChamp's podcast, we're speaking with the hottest names in the culture, like Swaley. Do you realize how legendary you are? I've figured it. I've seen him, and I'm like, "Man, I said, I like so much more to do, like Prince. He's got like 30 albums. We've got like five right now. That's the rate we've got to be going." Yeah, that's a good attitude.

You also hear stories from industry legends and hip-hop pioneers, like Fab5 Freddy. To live near me in Harlem, his dad introduced him to a whole lot of, you know, conscious stuff,

“and he made a young prodigy. No matter the era, DrinkChamp brings you the biggest names and the”

most unfiltered conversations. Listen to DrinkChamp's from the Black Effect podcast network on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Mainstream media is full of cruel depictions of the unhoused stories that shane, m blame, and paint the unhoused as a monolith. We the unhoused is the podcast that's changing that. I'm Theo Henderson, creator, and host, and for years I've created a space

where the unhoused and their advocates can tell their own stories. In the last few months alone, I've interviewed unhoused parents, immigrants, mutual aid organizers, veterans, LGBQTIA plus community, and the policy makers who make the laws that impact the unhoused existence. We the unhoused is a two-time webbie and signal award winning show with many exciting guests on the horizon. Toon in this week for my interview with Dr. Jill Wichord, a strict doctor,

turned in slow answer, whose work with the unhoused community has made a huge impact online and in her community. Listen to we the unhoused on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Okay Chuck, so one thing that I've learned is it's not necessarily like the Supreme Court is their decisions are final forever. They kind of shift and move over time,

over long enough periods of time. The fairness doctrines are really good example of that because in the '60s, the Supreme Court ruled pretty clearly the FCC was constitutional, but by the end of the '70s, the Supreme Court started to side with broadcasters instead, the winds of change kind of blew through there. And there was one case in particular that the Supreme Court heard in 1979 that signaled a real change for the fairness doctrine and the

FCC applying it. And it was a case that involved W.J. IMTV in Lansing, Michigan, which is owned by a guy named Harold Gross. Yeah, so the complaint here was that he or the station rather,

So what he did was he denied airtime to political rivals. In some cases, in other cases, he censored coverage of local businesses if they didn't advertise with them. Yeah, he was a accused of clipping, which is taking like when a network delivers a show, it has commercial breaks in it. He would have his editors go through and add even more commercial breaks, and you're not supposed to do. That was a big one. Didn't cover the Jimmy Hoffa disappearance because he didn't like

Jimmy Hoffa's politics, even though it was a national and a local story. Yeah, so in 1975 a hearing by the FCC said, you know, you violated the fairness rule. We're taking your license, buddy, but he appealed it. And this time he won the appeal. And like you said, this was a big shift in the way things were being thought about as far as the fairness doctrine went. Hey, one more more thing about Harold Gross before we move on. This guy, he was such a businessman that when he

started his TV station in 1950, W. J. I. M. He was actually one of the first 108 license holders

to broadcast on TV, but he wasn't sure that TV was going to stick around that it was going to take off as a technology. So he built the W. J. I. M facilities so that it could be converted into a motel

“if TV didn't go anywhere. So the original W. J. M. TV station had a pool out back. What is it now?”

What is what the bill is? The pool? I don't know. I looked up to see if there was anything recent about it and I didn't find any any new stuff, but I saw a picture of the station and there's definitely a pool out back from back in the 50s. It's got a nice perk. I guess so. I wonder if you let anybody swim in it or not? Maybe if you advertised, he would have let you. So this was the mid to late 70s and then things really really started changing in the 1980s because that whole thing

about remember when we said putting a pin in spectrum scarcity, that was no longer a problem. By the mid 1980s, there were more than 10,000 radio stations, 1,300 TV stations, about 1700 newspapers and the whole sort of drum beat was like, wait a minute, there's not a problem here anymore with scarcity. We should be able to do what we want because you told newspapers from the very beginning that their free speech was protected and they could do whatever they want,

why are we any different? Yeah, that's a really big point that a lot of people pointed to over the years is, why does this just apply to electronic media? Like the print media literally has an editorial page where they come out with positions on candidates and all of a sudden, why doesn't

it apply to them? And for years and years and years, it was any smoke can basically go get a newspaper

printed. The radio is different because of that spectrum scarcity. But yeah, as the satellite people came along and as cable came along, that just kind of went out the door. So spectrum scarcity going away in the fact that the newspaper industry, the print media was not regulated anywhere near the same way, really kind of removed any remaining foundation for the fairness doctrine

“to stand on. Yeah, so in 1985 the FCC kind of got their gears turning and said, you know what?”

We think this is, we want Congress to review this basically. We're going to institute a public comment period even and we think we should abandon the personal attack rule and in this case by case thing. Right. And yeah, they did this for like two years and while the FCC's holding like these public hearings on it, Congress at the same time was saying, well, we don't really want the fairness doctrine to go away. And not just the left, there was a bipartisan supported bill that got

passed in Congress to codify the fairness doctrine, but it was vetoed by Reagan. And so after that

that was basically it for the fairness doctrine. Yeah, the FCC voted unanimously to just get rid of it.

They did and so they didn't actually get rid of it. They just stopped enforcing it or some

“parts of it. They kept enforcing, I think the personal attack and political editorial provisions”

up until like 2000 for like another 13 years. But the idea that you had to promote opposing viewpoints on your television station or your radio station, that one away starting in 1987. And a lot of people say that really changed the American media landscape big time. Yeah, I mean, depending on who you are, I'm trying to answer on this. To being on who you are,

or you may think it was a mixed thing. It was definitely a flawed policy. I think everyone agrees that it wasn't perfect. But the legacy is really complex. Getting rid of it basically open the door for what we have today, which is a degraded new standard, minority viewpoints that aren't necessarily covered and how polarized we are because, you know, people dug in and they said, all right, I'm going to start my super conservative radio stations and then people said, I'm going to start my

super conservative liberal website and radio shows and liberals are going to listen to theirs and

conservatives are going to listen to theirs and never the tween shall meet. Right, right. And so,

especially if you have like each side promoting a viewpoint or an agenda to the detriment of the other side, there's like the middle ground is lost, which I mean some people, I know some people aren't very hip-on centrism these days anyway, but I mean, you can keep a pretty decent size society

“together when you kind of follow a centrist access upward and onward, you know, and I think that”

to me the fairness doctrine showed that. I mean, I don't think it's a big surprise where I fall on whether the fairness doctrine is a good idea or not. But I just don't think it's like I can see saying all these people out here need good information and it's probably not going to just

get out there on its own if we the government don't step in and say here's how we need to get good

information out. And I think the current media landscape is just complete proof positive of that, that if you just don't, if you just let it all go free for all, then you end up with what we have, that this is what the market offers us. It's a chambers. Echo chambers polarization and a huge division in the country, without anybody saying, well, wait, wait, yes, over here, you guys are right,

“over here, you guys are right, and things are really messed up. But also, what about this other stuff?”

We kind of all agree on this part and what about this part? Yeah, we have a lot of common ground here, no one's talking about that, and that used to be the role that the media played before.

Yeah, I mean, one thing we can say is without the fairness doctrine, we may not have gotten

any of these minority viewpoints in the 1940s and 50s and 60s. People might not have been as well informed except maybe the newspaper about the civil rights movement, women's rights movement, how bad smoking is, about nuclear power plants, like all of these things that were sort of in the shadows were now now had a guaranteed platform. But like we mentioned earlier, because they didn't really, they had to give these opposing viewpoints. He also could have possibly born the anti-vax movement

and the climate denial movement and stuff like that. So it was flawed to be sure. Sure. Yeah, you, there's from what I understand, like any Democrat to the right of Ralph Nader, which is almost everybody says, yes, fairness doctrine, what a terrible idea, terrible idea. It was officially repealed in 2011, and if you'll think back, that was under the Obama administration. So the Obama administration's FCC was the one that officially took the fairness doctrine off

of the books, removed it. Yeah. But I mean, that was a purge. That was just like, there's a bunch of rotten food in the fridge and why has no one thrown it out yet. Yeah, but it was also pretty symbolic. It was a symbolic act, whether they intended it or not. But the idea that it was removed by a democratic, lefty president's administration is,

“I don't know. It's saying something, I think. Yeah, here's where we are today, though.”

There was a poll, a Gallup poll, and just last year in 2018 that's found Americans, don't trust the news. They guessed, let me see, 62% of what they hear is biased. 44% is inaccurate, and 39% is misinformation. That's, those numbers seem low to me. That's not a great place to be in as a country, though. No, it's a terrible place. It's a scary place. Like, how is this country still together, you know? Yeah. But, and the other things,

we're going to get so much guff because we didn't come out and just stay completely down the middle. But I mean, I want to say, I understand where people on the right are coming from with this, like, ideologically, this is censorship and the prohibition of the exercise of free speech. And that is one of, that is a core founding value of conservativeism and libertarianism.

overreaching. It's worst examples, you know? Yeah, but it's like, it wasn't, it wasn't like state-run radio, you know? No, it wasn't like the government, the federal government, propagandizing their agenda. Right. But yeah, it was saying, like, hey, you can say this viewpoint. Right. You also have to show the other viewpoint. To me, that's almost impossible to argue with. Yeah, and I think newspapers of, of high standing still on their editorial page kind of

“print the two opposing opinions side by side. Yeah, that's what Op Ed stands for is opposite”

the editorial page. So, the editorial page will be the, the newspapers opinion. They're editorial

board. And then on the literal opposite page is the basically the opposing opinion of that.

Yeah, it's just a high journalistic standard. Right. But this is the government saying this. A newspapers do this on their own. I guess just out of tradition. Whereas electronic media is a little more while Westy than that. That's right. So here we are today, uh, pretty interesting times we live in. And it's all because the fairness doctrine went away. Anyway, thanks for listening to this episode of stuff you shouldn't have. If you're going to more about the fairness

doctrine, just go outside and see how you like things. And since I said that, it's time for listener me up. I'm going to call this the sound of our voices. Or I'm sorry. Let me say this.

“The color of our voices. Oh, yeah. I know it. My voice is color. This is good. In fact,”

yours is an even color. This is more of a field thing. Okay. So, hey guys, listen to the episode on perfect pitch. You mentioned that synestites are often good candidates. For having perfect pitch, I fall into the category of being someone who possesses both. I've been serious about my musicianship since my earliest recollections of life. And that's when I began in volunteerly hearing all the individual musical notes in their own unique

unchanging colors. For example, the sound of the note F. I should have brought in, dude, I bought one of those little, uh, what do you call it? Titch pipe. I got about a pitch pipe. Why didn't you bring it in? No, I should have brought it in. The one note harmonica. I should have bought two. I'm going to buy you one. I would love it. Can you have it engraved too? Sure. Okay. Um, so the sound of F for Allison

has never not caused a rush of the color orange to sweep over her from head to foot. I also hear

people's individual voices in colors. Uh, what's unique about voices to me, they're incredibly textured in and of themselves. Uh, you guys have voice colors and textures. I love mine. Read my Josh's voice anytime I hear it. Sounds like Swade. If Swade could make a sound painted medium to dark brown with a tiny hint of Easter egg purple. That's very nice. That is a lovely combo if you ask me. Uh, Chuck's voice on the other hand has zero fuzz to it at all. Uh, Chuck's voice

is Mary. Very metallic. Almost shimmery. Like you're gazing upon a deep blue green body of water and you can see straight to the bottom. Nice. That's a nice voice right there. Look at these both great voices. Yeah. I'm very happy that I mean who knows what could have come out of this email. You know, yours smells like the puke. And yours sounds like nails on a chalkboard. The end. Um, I've come to find out that no two voice colors are exactly the same kind of like

thumb prints and snowflakes. A person's voice color does not morph into something else, either if they suddenly start speaking in another language. Uh, and it also has nothing to do with his or her particular personality type. So they're not saying you're smooth like Swade on like as a person. Oh, yes. Clearly. I think that's a person. Oh, yes. Clearly. I think that's a person. The point of the matter I delight in hearing both of your voices nearly every day is a tune

into the show. It's become a staple in my daily existence. Keep on being wonderful. That is from Allison who is at our Salt Lake City show. All she interacted with us from the crowd. That's great. Thank you for interacting with us Allison. We appreciate that. It's illegal at

“our shows, but I think I asked a question and she answered it. It's against the rules. That's what”

they say. Um, well, thanks Allison. That was one of the more interesting emails we've ever received

frankly. Uh, if you want to be like Allison and go to one of our live shows, you will never regret

it for a single moment in your entire life. And if you want to get in touch with us like Allison did to you can go on to our website, stuffyshadow.com, follow our social links there or you can send us an email. Send it off to [email protected]. Stuffyshadow is a production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts, my heart radio visit the iHeart Radio app. Apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

toward a more joyful existence. Joy 101. It's a new podcast hosted by me, How to Copy. If you're

“craving inspiration to maximize your joy, tune into these candid, uplifting and moving on air chats.”

Open your free iHeart Radio app search, Joy 101, and listen now. Joy 101 with How to Copy

is presented by CVS. June is black music month and on the drink chance podcast, we're speaking with

“the hottest names in the culture, like Swaley. Do you realize how legend there you are?”

I appreciate it. I've seen him and I'm like master, I like so much more to do, like Prince.

He's got like 30 albums. We've got like five right now, like that's the really gotta be gone. Yeah, that's a good attitude. No matter the era, drink chance brings you the biggest names and the most unfiltered conversations. Listen to drink chance from the black effect podcast network on the iHeart Radio app. Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. Every family has its secrets, but what happens when you discover that your dad has been

“living a double life? That is not the look of an innocent man. Is everyone lying to me about who they are?”

I felt such desperation. I felt it was what I had to do. Listen to deep cover the family man. I mean, iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.