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Amidst fears that Congress, the White House, or the FCC could bring back the so-called Fairness Doctrine for broadcast media, the US Senate last week struck a pre-emptive strike to ban the policy. The Fairness Doctrine required by law that public airwaves feature an even balance of political views in programming. When President Ronald Reagan repealed the doctrine more than 20 years ago, it set the stage for the dominance, particularly in radio, of conservative talk shows hosted by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, and others. The Senate ban, backed strongly by some Republican lawmakers as a result of heavy lobbying by right wing broadcasters, is a pre-emptive strike against verbal pledges by some Democrats to revive the Fairness Doctrine after Obama’s election. Obama himself has said that he is opposed to reviving the doctrine. The Senate ban on the Fairness Doctrine was an amendment snuck into an unrelated bill on DC Voting Rights, and passed 87-11.

GUEST: Steve Rendall is FAIR’s senior analyst, and co-host of CounterSpin, FAIR’s national radio show. He has written about the Fairness Doctrine for FAIR’s magazine Extra!. For more information, visit www.fair.org.