Jim Inhofe: “I am pleased to cosponsor, with Senator Coleman, an amendment to prohibit the reimplementation of the Fairness Doctrine.…”

“I am pleased to cosponsor, with Senator Coleman, an amendment to prohibit the reimplementation of the Fairness Doctrine. As we may remember, over the past few weeks, the Fairness Doctrine has received a lot of attention. Some Senators spoke about the need to reinstitute this doctrine. The Fairness Doctrine is a regulation the Federal Communications Commission developed to require FCC-licensed broadcasters to provide contrasting viewpoints on controversial issues. However, the FCC conducted a review of this regulation in 1985, concluding that "we no longer believe that the Fairness Doctrine serves the public interest." In explaining why the FCC reached this conclusion, they wrote: The interest of the public is fully served by the multiplicity of voices in the marketplace today and that the intrusion by Government into the content of programming unnecessarily restricts the journalistic freedoms of broadcasters. The FCC's refusal to enforce the Fairness Doctrine was later upheld in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Why would a regulation that was found to be unnecessary over 20 years ago be controversial today? Well, we found out why. On June 22, the Center for American Progress issued a report called "The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio." Keep in mind that the Center for American Progress is a liberal think tank funded by George Soros and led by John Podesta and a lot of former Clinton White House people in it.”