The Fairness Doctrine was removed from the law governing the media by the Federal Communications Act of 1996, if I remember correctly. ( Somebody correct me if that’s not quite right.) The repeal of the Fairness Doctrine allowed a channel like Fox “News” to spew propaganda bullsh*t with no corrections and no requirement to air “public se…
The Fairness Doctrine was removed from the law governing the media by the Federal Communications Act of 1996, if I remember correctly. ( Somebody correct me if that’s not quite right.) The repeal of the Fairness Doctrine allowed a channel like Fox “News” to spew propaganda bullsh*t with no corrections and no requirement to air “public service” announcements by people who opposed their incendiary propaganda. Then the rise of the internet in the 1990’s never got properly regulated. It democratized the media and gave a platform to a much wider diversity of views, but also removed all the barriers that used to prevent crazy cranks, conspiracy promoters, and extremists from spreading lies and hate. So now, the radicalized NRA has been able to indoctrinate close to half of Americans with the unprecedented and historically groundless creed that defending their “freedom” from “tyranny”requires unchecked civilian access to firearms. And there are no more laws to prevent Fox/Breitbart/4chan/parler et al from spewing QAnon and Dumpster’s Big Lie and any other loony crap they want under the very twisted and battered banner of “free speech”. Much of the blame for our current broken public discourse, radicalized right wing, public hate speech, and rise of authoritarian threats to our democracy traces straight back to the failure of Congress in the 1990’s to maintain proper regulation of all media to keep out lies, crazies, and hate ideologies. Sorry, y’all, preaching to the choir here, I know. End of useless rant.
I seem to recall that removed law, and it has as you have so eloquently pointed out, led to nothing but a heap of trouble. So much has been deregulated and as they say, it is hard to get the Genie back into the bottle. Can the USA ever catch up to the mess of all the things that have been deregulated under the Republican love of making money and not having government interfere with that? In the meantime everything is just a big old mess. Our infrastructure is falling apart, but we are used to roads with holes and bridges collapsing and not getting services, and moldy ugly schools, and school buses that look like they are from the 1940s. I am around people whose countries are older and yet they cannot believe how old our infrastructure looks. I wish we could just have had Build Back Better.
The Fairness Doctrine was removed from the law governing the media by the Federal Communications Act of 1996, if I remember correctly. ( Somebody correct me if that’s not quite right.) The repeal of the Fairness Doctrine allowed a channel like Fox “News” to spew propaganda bullsh*t with no corrections and no requirement to air “public service” announcements by people who opposed their incendiary propaganda. Then the rise of the internet in the 1990’s never got properly regulated. It democratized the media and gave a platform to a much wider diversity of views, but also removed all the barriers that used to prevent crazy cranks, conspiracy promoters, and extremists from spreading lies and hate. So now, the radicalized NRA has been able to indoctrinate close to half of Americans with the unprecedented and historically groundless creed that defending their “freedom” from “tyranny”requires unchecked civilian access to firearms. And there are no more laws to prevent Fox/Breitbart/4chan/parler et al from spewing QAnon and Dumpster’s Big Lie and any other loony crap they want under the very twisted and battered banner of “free speech”. Much of the blame for our current broken public discourse, radicalized right wing, public hate speech, and rise of authoritarian threats to our democracy traces straight back to the failure of Congress in the 1990’s to maintain proper regulation of all media to keep out lies, crazies, and hate ideologies. Sorry, y’all, preaching to the choir here, I know. End of useless rant.
I seem to recall that removed law, and it has as you have so eloquently pointed out, led to nothing but a heap of trouble. So much has been deregulated and as they say, it is hard to get the Genie back into the bottle. Can the USA ever catch up to the mess of all the things that have been deregulated under the Republican love of making money and not having government interfere with that? In the meantime everything is just a big old mess. Our infrastructure is falling apart, but we are used to roads with holes and bridges collapsing and not getting services, and moldy ugly schools, and school buses that look like they are from the 1940s. I am around people whose countries are older and yet they cannot believe how old our infrastructure looks. I wish we could just have had Build Back Better.
Healthy place to rant.
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