Goddamn backhanded lefty bullshit from R.K. Shull of the Indianapolis Star:
Dear R.K. Shull: As I listen to all the political garbage on TV and radio, I wonder what has happened to the "fairness doctrine". -- S.L.S.Dear Reader: The Federal Communications Commission regulation requiring a degree of balance in what stations put on the air was discarded in 1987 by the Reagan Administration on the grounds that we have so many outlets that none need be fair anymore.
(Emphasis mine.)
Somehow, Mr. Shull, I don't think that's what actually was said or what the actual intent was. I think the point of discarding the rule was because it was clear that just about anyone could get air time to spout their views to the public, especially given the prevalence of local access cable and so forth. I doubt sincerely that there was any intent for outlets to be explicitly UNfair.
Here again we have a liberal complaining left-handedly (ouch! don't hit!) that the media are somehow dominated by the right wing. I dunno. Last time I looked, ABC, CBS, NBC, and PBS pretty much had Fox News outnumbered in the lib vs. con department. And I haven't seen many conservative newspapers in Indianapolis lately, either, much as our local Gannett rag "strives" to be fair to both sides (and yet still runs Dan Carpenter's racist, anti-Semitic and otherwise disgusting screeds on a regular basis -- there was a reason the Pulliams made him a non-contributing editor, folks).
The thing that gets me about Shull is that he used to be a fairly decent political reporter, and I enjoyed reading him in those days. I guess he's coasting to retirement doing his daily TV/radio mailbag, which I can never really understand the need for given Google and IMDb. Before the Internet, the kinds of questions he is most often asked would have required access to the appropriate media encyclopedias, etc. Today all you have to do is plug "Dirk Blocker date of death" into Google, and hey presto! But people still write to him asking exactly that sort of question. I guess Shull just surfs all day anymore...
