Is The FCC Looking To Backdoor The Fairness Doctrine?

According to Radio INK, that’s what some lawmakers seem to be thinking in a letter written to new FCC Chairman Thomas Wheeler from the Committee on Energy and Commerce. The opening paragraph highlights the importance of the commission’s removal of the Fairness Doctrine, calling it an intrusion into free speech. That’s followed up by a call to stop “this most recent attempt to engage the FCC as the news police.” What has lawmakers all twisted up is the commission’s November Public Notice announcing a field test for the research design of a multi-market study of critical information needs. The committee letter states, “The proposed design for the CIN study shows a startling disregard for not only the bedrock constitutional principles that prevent government intrusion into the press and other news media, but also for the lessons learned by the Commission’s experience with the Fairness Doctrine.”

The concern of the committee is that the study is seeking information on how all local news outlets select and prioritize news. The Commission also plans to ask journalists and stations about their news philosophy and why stories are rejected. The letter goes on to say, “The Commission is not a research institution but rather a government entity with authority to regulate some of the targets of the CIN study. The Commission has no business probing the news media’s editorial judgment and expertise, nor dies it have any business in prescribing a set diet of ‘critical information.’ These goals are plainly inappropriate and are at bottom an incursion by the government into the constitutionally protected operations of the professional news media.”

The CIN study would cost taxpayers $900,000. The committee would like answers to seven specific questions about how this would benefit the taxpayers by January 10.

Read the full committee letter CLICK HERE

Courtesy of Radio INK