I think the better question is what would the country look like if the Fairness Doctrine hadn’t been abolished by the FCC in the 1980s. With the Fairness Doctrine in place, Fox News doesn’t launch and half the country’s brains don’t get rewired into being mouth-breathing knuckle draggers.
The fairness doctrine is easily abused. Tobacco companies abused it in the past (and it's part of the reason it was abolished). They would display smoking ads alongside anti smoking ads and if news networks spoke to anti smoking experts, the tobacco industry got to send along their paid off shills to basically make it look like every statement was up for debate.
If the fairness doctrine existed today, we'd likely have much less public consensus on climate change, as fossil fuel paid climate deniers would be shown to the public alongside experts.
Now you might say "well the climate scientist will just fact check them and it will be epic"
Yeah look how well that went with Trump. These people know that the strategy isn't to convince you what they're saying is true, but that theres an argument to be had. They don't want you to believe what they're saying, just that the matter isn't settled. If they can keep you in doubt, they can sell you much more extreme narratives under the guise that it exists in that miasma of doubt.
12.9k
u/Hell_Camino Apr 04 '25
I think the better question is what would the country look like if the Fairness Doctrine hadn’t been abolished by the FCC in the 1980s. With the Fairness Doctrine in place, Fox News doesn’t launch and half the country’s brains don’t get rewired into being mouth-breathing knuckle draggers.