If you see media, especially blogs of this genre, it is without a doubt, biased-opinionated-and slanted. Not many bloggers present more than their side, and for good reason. It is their property. Likewise with radio and other forms of media, the person who owns this allyway of media should have the right to say, within decency, one’s opinions and slants.
Suppourter of the fairness doctrine, Senator Jeff Bringham, says this
I would want this station and all stations to have to present a balanced perspective and different points of view. All I’m saying is that for many, many years we operated under a Fairness Doctrine in this country, and I think the country was well-served. I think the public discussion was at a higher level and more intelligent in those days than it has become since.
However, this contradicts the theme of free speech and the idea of presenting both sides. When the fairness doctrine was set back in the forties, results did not see the kinds predicted. Instead of radio stations presenting a “fair and balanced” approach towards broadcasting we saw the opposite-a removal of controversial topics, in exchange for comedy hours and other types of entertainment.
How to track blogging would be another issue. Not only would this kind of restriction be nearly impossible to track with how the blogsphere operates, it would completely remove the common man’s voice from being able to be heard. Also, the blogsphere adds more to the way media operates. It encompasses the fairness doctrine without legislation. Bloggers natrually link to others, mainly with political blogs, that disagree with them so the blogger can disprove the other bloggers point. The fairness doctrine seems unnescessary for the internet to say the least.
If this would start, an issue of who determined what was fair and what isn’t. With the fairness doctrine, an issue of free speech could be breeched and possibly a communistic theroy could be in place for media.